As Matt Hinton at Dr. Saturday wrote, there was at least one big headline to come out of the BCS hearings in the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce committee today. Rep. Joe Barton stated his anti-BCS bill has “a better than 50-50 chance” of getting enough support to reach the President’s desk. And we all know how Barack Obama feels about the BCS. He thinks it’s silly, just like all of us.

But, there were also a few other fun things to parse out of the hearings.

Let’s go to the tape:

John Swofford, the coordinator of the BCS, rejected the idea of switching to a playoff, arguing it would threaten the existence of celebrated bowl games. Sponsorships and TV revenue that now go to bowl games would instead be spent on playoff games, “meaning that it will be very difficult for any bowl, including the current BCS bowls, which are among the oldest and most established in the game’s history, to survive,” Swofford said.

This excuse makes little sense to me. Why doesn’t college football just use the current BCS bowls for the last rounds of the playoff? Have the remaining eight teams — or if it’s an eight-team playoff, the only eight teams — face off in the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Orange Bowls. There are three games left on the docket after that: the semis and the Championship Game. Come up with two more fancy bowl games in the semis — which would give them more money, which is their only real sticking point, correct? — and then have the National Title game be played at one of the rotating BCS spots, like they already do now. This solves the problem of keeping the current bowls, and it makes you more money.

This is not a ridiculous idea, right?

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The BCS is evil. There’s no question about that (OK, there’s some “debate” but that’s because at least 10 percent of the world is clinically insane). And finally, after Barack Obama has spoken out repetitively against the dumbest way of deciding a national champion, it appears that several lawmakers are following in his tracks.

Witness the resolution to commend the Florida Gators for their national championship (Really? We need to spend taxpayer money on this?) that received a dozen “NAY”s when it landed in front of Congress recently.

“A fine school with a great team deserves better than a national championship that was decided inside somebody’s computer,” said Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who has introduced legislation to force a playoff system. “The Gators certainly could have won it on the field, but they didn’t get the chance any more than Utah, Texas and USC.”

“Utah has a legitimate claim but we’ll never know because they couldn’t play for it,” said Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., who said he also voted against the resolution because he thinks it’s a waste of Congress’ time.

And yes, most of the lawmakers who voted “No” or “Present” (passive aggressive FTW, natch) were from Texas or Utah; that’s not entirely surprising since they’re the most cheesed off, obviously.

But, hey, they aren’t the only ones. And while ESPN has already dictated that there won’t be a change for four years (although I think there’s a pretty good argument that they could make more money using a playoff) because of their new contract, this stubbornized progress from lawmakers, coupled with Barack’s insistence on the change, shows that we are moving in a positive direction when it comes to making rational decisions about how to decide a college football championship.

Oh, and also, thank you, Representative Berry — the last freaking thing that Congress needs to be doing should be a resolution to congratulate someone for winning a championship. Especially one that’s not even real.

Today, Sports Illustrated college football columnist Stewart Mandel’s name came through the old RSS reader. Hey, Stewart! Let’s just click on through here and see what we’ve got and … oh, no. You’re arguing against a college football playoff? Using the Arizona Cardinals to make your point? Oh no no no no:

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the living embodiment of a devalued regular season: The Arizona Cardinals.

After talking about how the 9-7 Cardinals are proving that the NFL regular season means nothing — as if the Cardinals didn’t have to clinch their division before they made the playoffs — Mandel gets a typically stupid quote from Peter King, chats with Football Outsiders expert Aaron Schatz and eventually segues into the one thing that apparently horrifies college football fans everywhere: the myth of devaluation:

That may be true at first. But as with every other single-elimination sport, sooner or later, the playoffs would become the only thing that matters. As it is today, fans of all but the most woeful teams retain a vested interest until the very end due to the prospect of a bowl berth. With a playoff in place, fans would inevitably lose interest once their teams were eliminated from contention. Even if the bowls stayed in business, they’d become to football what the NIT is to basketball.

Meanwhile, the regular season would become just like the NFL’s and college basketball’s. Instead of revolving around the national-title race, the biggest games at the end of the season would be those involving potential wild-card or at-large teams. In college football, there’s always at least one, if not several, big “national” games each week (like the ones GameDay features). With a playoff, it would be more like basketball, where there are only two truly “big” games unaffiliated fans watch in droves: The two Duke-North Carolina games. Just substitute Ohio State-Michigan and Oklahoma-Texas.

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Tim Tebow gets a lot of praise. Most of it is deserved. Take last night, for instance — Tebow looked pretty freaking fantastic in the second half of the BCS Championship game, and Florida won. He’s going to get a lot of credit. But when the guy starts taunting the other team, can we at least not try to spin it in a positive light? Thom? You hear that, buddy?

On the bright side, the FOX announcers (whose FailFest has already been documented all over the Webz) at least didn’t say something ridiculous like, “Tebow. Now that guy really knows how to be a classy jerkstore.” Or something more appropriate and less funny (if that’s possible).

But make no mistake folks: this won’t be the last time you hear mild criticisms of Tim Tebow. No, sir. He’s going to be the most annoying buzzword of 2009 if/when he turns pro. Why? He’s a great college quarterback, but there’s no real answer on whether or not that will translate to the pros. Additionally, he’s like Jesus, but with cleats instead of sandals, at least if you listen to anyone on television. And those two facts will have analysts frothing over him until his name does or does not get called for the draft.

And by “best,” I mean “most homoerotic”:

Start with the grass stains. He left the field wearing the most splendid of grass stains, long swaths of green stretching over his shoulders, across his chest, down his back, the badge of a linebacker.

Now check out the number. He is No. 15, but his jersey was tugged and twisted so much, sometimes it looked as if he were No. 11, sometimes 17, the wrinkles of a lineman.

Finish with the face. Thick cheeks decorated in eye black, framed by a crew cut, above a tight expression that sweated with intensity, a face of a fighter.

This is Tim Tebow. For a couple of wonderfully antique hours Thursday, this is the perfect player who made us forget college football’s imperfect system.

For the record, the “perfect player” threw two picks in the first half. BECAUSE HE’S NOT A PERFECT PLAYER. Anyway, I don’t want to spoil the poetic gayness. Plaschke, take a bow — but not before the money shot:

But, oh, he did, and suddenly all the BCS controversy momentarily disappeared underneath his churning legs, his exhorting arms, and his game-ending, completely uncharacteristic, in-Oklahoma’s-face Gator chomp.

Again, not to spoil the party, but exhorting is not an adjective that can describe arms, because arms don’t have the capacity to “urge by strong, stirring argument.” But adjective agreement doesn’t matter here. What matters is that Bill Plaschke, in a long career of writing utterly ridiculous, overwrought and ultimately awesome sports columns, may have finally busted his wad. This is the coup de grace of man-love. The holy grail. The single … gayest column I’ve ever read in my entire life. And I don’t mean “gay” the way people derogatorily use it to mean “stupid.” I actually mean: homosexual.

Bulls forward Tyrus Thomas will be checking in periodically. All of his blog entries can be viewed here. Bookmark it, and check back often.

I must say, as an LSU Tiger, I never thought I would ever side with the Florida Gators. Tim Tebow was awesome. I’m actually still confused on why he didn’t win the Heisman Trophy. The Southeastern Conference was represented well. Only thing that I don’t like about Florida winning another National Championship, is that I have to hear Joakim’s mouth. The things he’s going to say should be interesting. I will let you guys know how it goes.

Gone,

Tyrus

Oh, sports. We sports people do love us some sports. Sometimes we love sports so much that we think our minor quibbles with it are the most important things in the world, more important than any number of actually serious problems. For example: The economy. Foreign policy. Energy. Health reform. I could go on — there are any number of things that are plaguing our society and our world far more important than “Utah deserves to play for a National Championship.” (They do, by the way, but that’s the beside the point.)

The point is that — and part of this is Obama’s fault for injecting himself even slightly into the conversation — sorry, sportswriter friends, but Barack Obama is not going to magically swoop down from the sky and create a college football playoff. Quoth the President-elect:

I think — I think a football playoff system makes sense. I’ve spoken about this quite a bit, and I think if you look at knowledgeable sports fans, they agree with me. But, you know, I’ve got to pick and choose my battles. I probably am going to be spending more time focusing on creating three more — three million more jobs.

In other words, it’s time that we all stood back, relaxed, and realized that our new President-elect  has other things to worry about. Please, people, please stop writing things like this, which of course comes from ESPN’s Rick “Seriously, They Paid Me $17 Million To Pander Like This” Reilly:

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