It’s over now. #1 played #2 and #1 was victorious.

It was a great game, with a little of everything in it for college football fans – interceptions, injuries, trick plays, and heartwarming stories of players who faced adversity and kept going.

However, there was something just not right about it.  This is not the game we should have had.

It has been over a month since the BCS, aided by computers (what would we do without them?), decided which two teams would face each other in its don’t-call-it-a-national-championship game. There were four more Saturdays of college football in which the fans could have had the playoff that included all of the best teams in football, not just those ordained by a group of insiders deadset on protecting their million dollar paychecks.

Joe Paterno said it best in a recent interview with ESPN. “We must have a championship game. We get forgotten after we finish the season. I don’t like the BCS. I think we need a playoff.”

The team with even one loss gets forgotten because their fate is decided immediately upon the regular season’s end. And what’s worse for teams that are not in an elite conference such as Penn State, even with a perfect season, a mid-major will be similarly exiled. Just ask Boise State how they felt after beating TCU in the anticlimactic Fiesta Bowl.

As responsible sports fans, we want the college football season to last with an eye toward keeping our school’s athletes healthy – but with meaningful games leading up to the crowning of a true champion.

Without a playoff in the month of December, we will never know. If that means Alabama doesn’t play Jack State in September, so be it. We’d rather see an Alabama-Florida playoff rematch then the Florida-Charleston Southern blowout in Week 1.

Picking the final two teams for NCAA Football’s top prize  shouldn’t include a debate of what clique they hang out in. In this new decade, let the champion be decided on the field.

The pressure is coming to bear on the BCS to change their ways. Momentum is building from fans and sports media and it is reaching the point where it is very likely that College Bowls will be “flushed” and playoffs will be instituted.

We are at a real tipping point. It has been said that there are 3 types of
people in the World; those people who make things happen; those people who watch things happen; and those people who never knew what happened. SFC needs people who make things happen and we need you now.

Together with your help, SFC can help put a stake in the heart of the BCS. We
need you to join SFC to help us help you make this happen. We are so close
to bringing equity and fairness to college football. A success in killing
off the bowl system will empower the fan to realize many more
accomplishments in areas like blackouts of games, ticket pricing, stadium
funding, etc.

Let’s double up our efforts today to help bring real change to college
football.

As the New Year approaches, so do the infamous BCS games – which will once again deliver on the promise of leaving us wanting more. More entertainment, more justice, and more cash in our wallets. 

The results of a Quinnipiac University National Poll were released today finding that American college football fans favor a playoff over the current system 63%-to-26%.

While fans are on the fence about congress getting involved, the SFC applauds those representatives investigating the issue and bringing these abuses to light.  It is our hope that the BCS will realize it is in their best interest to listen to the lifeblood of their organization, the fans, and begin the process of implementing a playoff.

In other news, our comrades at Playoff PAC have filed a complaint against the BCS’s Fiesta Bowl for reimbursing employees for political contributions.  The Arizona Republic dug up some dirt on these BCS practices, and now Playoff PAC is asking that they open up their books.  We at SFC need a shower just reading this madness.  While it’s not exactly shocking, the BCS and the Fiesta Bowl should not be allowed to sweep this under the carpet.

Last, but not least, average ticket prices for both the Rose Bowl (1/1) and the BCS Championship game (1/7) are up significantly over last year.
 
The average sale price for Rose Bowl tickets is $467–a 21% increase over last year’s average $387, and the average sale price for BCS tickets is $1,117 – a 16.7% increase over last year’s average $957!

God bless you if you can afford to make it to one of these games.  God help us all to be able to watch the games on TV at home.

The NCAA Football Bowl Season has begun and, believe it or not, it’s been some pretty exciting football.  While the matchups aren’t especially rivetting on paper and actually reading the pre-BCS schedule filled with sponsor tags is a little like watching a NASCAR race, the competition has not been filled with ho-hum blowouts. 

A double-OT win for Wyoming over Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl didn’t just make Dick Cheney smile.  A smirk was also found on the face of the Executive Director of the Bowl Championship Series Bill Hancock who has been spreading lies about how a playoff would hurt college football fans, and the economies of towns who currently host non-BCS bowl games. 

According to TIME Magazine, Hancock is one of the most loved men in the sports industry.  So, for those questioning the use of the word ‘lies’, it would be wise to read his unpalatable explanation predicting lost interest in the regular season, economic downfall for host cities of bowl games (assuming that host cities would have to change at all), and every other plague mentioned in Exodus short of raining amphibians, if in fact a playoff is instituted. 

Furthermore, Hancock’s piece in USA Today illustrates how out of touch he is with the simple desires of the college football fan.  That is obvious quite early in this written plea, but never moreso than when he dares to state that ‘playoffs burden the fans’.  After going on and on about how great it is to create memories going on road trips to see one’s alma mater in the post-season, this becomes a ‘burden’ when it’s inconvenient for his argument.

It’s a healthy practice to examine the argument in detail.  It’s also a good excercise to pull back the curtain to see who is spending what on whom to get what done in terms of lobbyists’ efforts to influence our currently inequitable system for better or worse.  

One thing is for sure:  The SFC will be following this issue closely, pushing for a playoff with our friends at Playoff PAC until that goal is realized.  Awaiting Hancock’s smile turned upside down to pure frown.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) takes the ‘C’ out of the BCS this Wednesday in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  Read the full story here:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/71005-house-committee-to-mark-up-college-football-bill

Consistent with the Sports Fans Coalition’s agenda, the markup of Rep. Joe Barton’s measure introduced in January of 2009, The College Football Playoff Act of 2009, “would ban promoting, marketing or advertising a ‘national championship game’ unless the game is part of a single-elimination playoff tournament like the National Football League playoffs, lest college football’s governing body be held in violation of Federal Trade Commission truth-in-advertising provisions.”

We wholeheartedly support Representative Barton and Senator Orin Hatch (R-Utah) in their efforts to continue to apply pressure on the NCAA, BCS, and all the Conference and University Presidents who resist change for fear of losing their slice of the BCS pie.  We support their efforts to expose the injustice for the benefit of the sports fan.