Why, exactly, does the House care about the BCS?

Everyone seems to want to go before Congress these days and whine about something.

This week, college football and the absolute joke known as the Bowl Championship Series was on the front burner.

Given all the world problems facing our new administration, is college football something we should be grappling with on Capitol Hill?

If we are going to waste time in D.C., shouldn't we just bring President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in and sit them down and let them talk about our country's many pressing issues instead of those who favor the BCS?

Maybe would could get the vice president to talk more about how our nation needs to stay away from flying in airplanes or riding on trains.

At least that way taxpayers would be getting their money's worth from their representatives, right?

Or is college football more important than, let's say, the Obama administration flying Air Force One over New York for more than $385,000 just to get a photo of it with the Statue of Lib-erty?

Or maybe college football is more important than President Obama's ability to hire and fire who he wants in the automobile industry?

But wait, didn't Obama say college football needed a playoff system and that it needed to get away from the BCS?

He did.

Get right on that, sir. I'm sure you will handle that about as well as you have all other issues during your short time in office.

But do we really need to group college football in with stimulus packages, bailouts, Iraq, North Korea, fly-over photo ops, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the automobile industry, AIG, swine flu, opening the doors to Cuba or cutting our defense budget?

We don't. However, there are those who feel we do.

Ah yes, our tax dollars are really being spent well with this new leadership. Is there a bank presi-dent out there who would like to give a loan to my unborn great-great grandchildren?

But I digress.

College football does not deserve to be a topic for our Congress to hear and rule on. That topic is the responsibility of the NCAA.

There are problems in college football. But there are far more problems in this world more impor-tant for our representatives to meet on other than sports.

However, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said about the BCS, "It's like communism. You can't fix it."

That I agree with. But just not coming from Capitol Hill.

We have thugs around the world threatening our nation with terrorist attacks and rocket launches, yet we want to bring the BCS to D.C.?

The main problem for college football is the fact that it does not have a true national champion at the end of the season. The BCS game pits what a computer and other polls deem as the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the nation together for a big television spectacular where FOX (and later ESPN) will make a ton of money.

This past year, Florida played Oklahoma for the national championship. Utah, the nation's only undefeated team out of the Mountain West Conference, was overlooked and placed in the Sugar Bowl, where it hammered an Alabama team that had been ranked No. 1 earlier in the sea-son.

Utah deserved to be in the national title game.

So why wasn't it?

Because it is in the MWC, which does not have an automatic bid into the BCS series of bowl games.

The Atlantic Coast Conference (why?), Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and Southeastern Con-ference have automatic bids into the BCS.

It is unfair to teams like Utah, or teams from any other formerly Division I-A conference not to have the opportunity to play for a national title if they deserve it.

Until there is a playoff, there will be no true national champion in Division I-A college football, no matter how FOX or ESPN play it up.

All of the BCS officials and college presidents are running around, saying a playoff would destroy the bowls that have been longstanding in college football culture.

Who cares?

We want a national champion. A true national champion.

Just imagine the run college football would have and the money it would make with advertising and multi-million-dollar contracts networks would get by having a playoff system in college foot-ball.

It works for college basketball and it works for college baseball. Why not college football?

The upcoming football season will see FOX end its run with the BCS games, with ESPN taking over in 2011 for five more years.

If a playoff is to take place, it is going to come no sooner than 2016.

Will Joe Paterno still be the head football coach at Penn State then?

JoePa wants 12th team

And speaking of Joe Paterno, he wants the Big Ten -- which has 11 teams in its conference -- to add a 12th team to the mix.

He wants the conference to add another team so the league can have a championship game at the end of the season like most other Division I conferences.

Paterno said the conference is all but forgotten after the final week of its' regular season because the Big Ten finishes the season the last week of November.

The next week, other conferences are playing championship games and the Big Ten is not men-tioned.

There is only one problem, however: With 12 teams, would the league still be called the Big Ten?

But there is one other reason as to why the Big Ten is not talked about that much in December and January. It's boring football.

Watching SEC, Big 12, Big East and even Pac-10 games is so much more exciting. Watching a Big Ten game is like sitting on the front porch on a Sunday afternoon watching the asphalt heat up on the road.

Best wishes

And quickly: Brett Favre to the Minnesota Vikings? Possible.

Pedro Martinez to the Washington Nationals? Let's hope not.

L.A. Lakers vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals? Let's hope so.

The Washington Redskins winning a Super Bowl? Probably not until the BCS is dead and gone.

Jeff Christian is a freelance columnist and he appears in The News & Messenger each Sunday. He can be reached at christianjeff@rocketmail.com.