It is comforting to know Congress has our best interests at heart.

With our nation facing a slew of issues, from overhauling health care to bolstering the flagging economy, from dealing with Afghanistan to getting ready for the inevitable return of the swine flu, at least one prominent Congressman has instead turned his attention to more weighty matters.

What it is, is football.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has decided to take on the Bowl Championship Series, the method through which the NCAA’s largest football playing schools decide their national champion.

Hatch said last week the Justice Department needs to step in and consider whether the BCS was violating antitrust laws.

The senator is on his high horse against the BCS because the University of Utah was not invited to last year’s BCS bowl party, despite finishing the regular season undefeated.

The Utes are part of the Mountain West Conference, one of the conferences that does not receive an automatic bid into a BCS game.

Utah went on to pound Alabama 31-17 in the Sugar Bowl, thus finishing 13-0. For their trouble, the Utes finished No. 2 in the final national polls.

During the hearing, Hatch cited the “arrogance about the BCS. An attorney for the Mountain West Conference called the BCS “a self-appointed cartel.” Utah president Michael Young accused the BCS of “perpetuating an unfair system,” and said the BCS has a “stranglehold on college football.”

Granted, the BCS stinks. It is an unfair system and one that annually produces an artificial national champion. There should be a playoff system, like there is at every other level of the game.

But Congress should butt out.

I don’t want my elected representatives spending their time worrying about college football. I want them to tackle real issues, like mounting unemployment and the malaise that still grips our nation’s economy.

College football is a form of entertainment, pure and simple. This makes it no more or less important than theater, movies, television or video games.

I would rather Congress get more involved in fixing our nation’s automobile industry. It used to be said if General Motors sneezed, America came down with a cold. General Motors is in bankruptcy. Can the nation be far behind?

There is a crazy man at the helm of North Korea threatening to fire long-range missiles at Hawaii. And he doesn’t care Florida won the last BCS national championship. And he has nukes, not to mention bad hair.

Iran is in turmoil, with an unstable leader of its own, and it, too, stands at the cusp of joining the nuclear club.

The war in Afghanistan is heating up, resulting in eight U.S. casualties in a recent two-day period. In Iraq, American troops are giving way to Iraqis, but the bombings continue.

So remind me again why a U.S. senator is wasting his time holding hearings about football?

Because, Hatch maintains, college football is a big money concern. Granted, the top echelon of college football is a $2 billion a year business. But why should that draw government scrutiny? The government didn’t exactly do a great job overseeing the home mortgage industry or the financial firms it wound up bailing out when the economy cratered.

America’s unemployment rate is 9.5 percent and is likely to creep past 10 percent before things begin turning around. At present, some 14.7 million Americans are out of work. Ask them whether they would rather have a job or a major college football playoff system.

The world is a troubled, dangerous place. Congress needs to spend its time worrying about making America safer, stronger and more prosperous, not whether or not Utah has a chance to win a national championship.

A major college playoff would be great. But it shouldn’t be Congress pushing for such a system, but the NCAA.

When reporters asked Hatch if the hearing amounted to political pandering, he replied, “That’s just bull.”

Actually, that’s a pretty good description of Hatch’s attempts to revamp the BSC.



Mullin is senior editor of the News & Eagle. E-mail him at jmullin@enidnews.com.