Congress way out of its league

No one has more contempt for college football's Bowl Championship Series than we do. It's beyond us why major college football is the only sport without a sensible means for determining a champion.

Instead, after a full season of watching young men compete valiantly for the mantle of No. 1, the BCS puts a bunch of statistics into a wood chipper and, from the sawdust and chips, claims to pull out the best two teams in college football.

It's unfair to the fans who put so much money and time and emotion into the season. And it's unconscionable to the student-athletes who put so much blood, sweat and tears into being the best, only to walk away not really knowing.

But as much as we despise the BCS system, reform must come from within it - spurred by fans' discontent, not by federal fiat.

Amazingly, though, a bipartisan bill being introduced in Congress this week by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, virtually mandates a switch to a playoff format.

Where does Congress get off?

If Barton's bill becomes law, it would be an appalling abuse - indeed, a frightening abuse - of lawmakers' power.

However desirable a change to a playoff system would be - and we are the first to say it's highly desirable - a federal law to compel playoffs would do far more damage to the body politic than it would be a help to college football.

This raises the question: Has Congress no respect for the Constitution?

Nowhere in that magnificent document is Congress, or the president for that matter, granted any authority whatsoever to meddle in sports controversies.

What's not in the Constitution is left to the states or the people to resolve. To ignore that fact is to ignore the Constitution; why not just rip it up instead?

Yet even if the sanctity of the Constitution were not at stake, BCS reform is still none of Congress' business. And, of course, neither are those other sports controversies that Congress has made a fool of itself getting involved in.

Recall the star-chamber grilling of Major League superstar pitcher Roger Clemens, or periodic high-profile hearings on legislation to require drug testing in all professional sports leagues.

These matters are way out of Congress' league. Dealing with them simply exposes lawmakers' arrogance and stupidity.

The nation is involved in two wars, a collapsing economy, soaring unemployment, out-of-control deficits and foreign policy crises in India, Pakistan, Iran and several other hot spots around the world. These are the issues legislators are elected to deal with - not reforming college football.

Clearly, Congress not only needs to learn to respect the Constitution, but to respect its attendant role in government. It seems lawmakers want to do everybody's job but their own! How much farther out of line can they get?

President-elect Obama has also spoken of converting the BCS to a playoff system. We wonder, with everything else on his plate, if that's the best use of the bully pulpit. The millions of middle-class voters who helped elect him to office did not do so because of his views on college football.

Certainly, replacing the BCS with a playoff system would be change we could believe in, but not if it is mandated from Washington. Some things are worse than the ill-conceived and unsatisfying BCS - and one of them is having the federal government ignore the Constitution and overreach its authority.