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The BCS Presidential Oversight Committee has a new chairman: University of Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor Harvey Perlman.

In other words, some would argue, Perlman just assumed a pretty important seat of power, as head of the committee that looks at the viability of playoffs, TV contracts, and the like.

The BCS just shot down a Mountain West proposal for an eight-team playoff. It was the chairman of the BCS PO committee, University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer, who delivered the vague statement explaining that any playoff suggestion “disrespect our academic calendars and they utterly lack a business plan.”

Well, a 12-game regular season helps disrupt the academic calendar. Conference title games help disrupt the academic calendar. And the playoff portion of Division I, filled with many excellent academic schools, manage to graduate kids despite the existence of a playoff.

The business plan argument, on the other hand…

At any rate, Perlman gets a shot at speaking for the BCS.

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In his final coaches ballot, Nebraska Coach Bo Pelini gave some Sooners the nod.

"It’s no secret I voted Oklahoma No. 1," Pelini said. "I played them. And I know Florida from my experience in the SEC as a helluva football team."

OU and the Gators, both 12-1, will square off in the BCS National Championship. Although it beat Oklahoma, Texas (12-1) was left out.

"I know Texas is helluva a football team," Pelini said. "It’s a shame they’re not in it. USC’s very good. They’re No. 1 in the country in total defense.

"...It’s not a perfect system.There are going to be a lot of arguments for that matchups and against that matchup. You can’t have everybody in the game. Only two spots."

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Imagine you’re Mack Brown this morning.


You are the coach of Texas Longhorns. Big name, big money, big influence. You feel wronged by a BCS system that not only put a team you beat – Oklahoma – into the national championship, but a team a from, at least in 2008, a noticeably weaker conference – Florida – in the title game, too. You lost one game, on the road, on the second-to-last play, to an 11-1 Texas Tech playing the biggest home game in school history. OU, as we already covered, lost to your team on a neutral site. Florida lost at home to an 8-4 team.


So now you’re heading to Tempe, Ariz., to play in the Fiesta Bowl. Against undefeated upstart Utah? No. Of course not. You’ll get 9-2 Ohio State, whose fans, we’re sure, are jazzed to head to Phoenix for the fourth time in seven years, whose offense resembles, on most days, a rundown rickshaw. And you’ll play this marquee game on Jan. 5 – a Monday, of all days – so as to maximize BCS television ratings. In other words, your kids get to sit around Tempe for seven days; half of it after New Year’s, surrounded by about as much fan energy as you’d find at a lawn darts tournament.


You know this is no kind of reward. You know that the BCS isn’t merely keeping you out of the national championship game. It’s making money off your big name, and the controversy of keeping you out of the national championship game.


You’re Mack Brown, coach of the kings of college football. What do you do?


You walk. Away. And make the BCS stick Texas Tech and Ohio State in Tempe for a ratings craptacular. They can rename it the Ford Festiva Bowl.


Yeah, you walk. Out of principle. To make a statement. To shake things up. To actually do something while every other coach merely crows about it.


If it’s really wrong – and you’ve said enough words to make us think you do – you wouldn’t validate it by taking a hand-me-down game. You take a stand, if only for one year, and just see what kind of ripples it makes. Maybe the apple cart tumbles down a flight of stairs. Maybe the buzz only lasts through January. But if you really think the BCS has it wrong, why participate in it? Why feed the beast?


Is the money? You’re Texas. You have all the money you need. And some boosters would love you for it. What – you think they won’t show up at the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 2 to watch Texas play Mississippi? Of course they will.



Is it the anger of the Big 12? Screw the Big 12. You own the Big 12 anyway, you have since the inception of it, and, besides, the Big 12 screwed you, didn’t it? An eye for an eye.
Is it the media? Forget the media. What do we know? What have we ever known? We stuck Alabama at No. 1 by default all season by virtue of its position in the SEC, when the SEC is about as impressive as a stack of beer cans behind the Georgia Dome Saturday night.


And if you do walk, don’t proverbially fall on your sword, suggesting Texas Tech “earned” a BCS bid by beating you. Don’t patronize. Don’t play the good guy. The BCS will not be thwarted by Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart. It needs a Clint Eastwood.


Say it plain. You don’t care who goes to the Fiesta Bowl in 2009. Invite Boise State, invite Georgia Tech, invite New Orleans Tech. It just isn’t going to be you. Your players will stay home for Christmas and New Year’s and happily beat the crap out of the team Florida couldn’t defeat at its own place back in September. After all, if UF does upset OU on a neutral site, well, so did you. All that’s left for the Associated Press voters to look at is common opponents. And if you’ve got a “W” next to Ole Miss, well, what else is there to consider?


You’re Mack Brown, and you’ve got a shot to produce something more than a little lip service.


Would you walk?


Or would you eat BCS leftovers in Scottsdale?


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(Above, the ESPN logo, all Vadered out)




And if you think this is great news, eh, think again.



Here's the skinny: ESPN's gonna get the BCS for 2011-2014, taking it away from Fox, which owns it for two more years and never seemed all that interested in college football in the first place.




CBS and NBC apparently don't want to bid (although there's little doubt, after NBC's great, compelling camerawork in the Olympics, that they certainly could pull it off, with an Al Michaels/John Madden called BCS title game). And ABC is owned, like ESPN, by Disney.




When the deal is finalized, Disney will shift all of the BCS games to ESPN. Let me repeat: The BCS title game will be on pay television. And not just any pay television; it'll be on ESPN. The network that invades our lives daily with annoying crosstalk and noise as it continues its never-ending quest to pit USC against Florida in some game, any game.




The BCS and university presidents, which are negotiating this deal, don't much care, because ESPN's bid was higher and most college football fans have the network anyway.



But here's why you should care.




1. Your cable/satellite dish bill will go up. Might as well simply count on it as ESPN will be able to charge a much higher fee to any cable company to carry the network, and that cable company - say, TimeWarner or Cox or Comcast - will in turn pass those charges on to the consumer. How much more will it be? Good question.




If you think this is a small issue - trust us. It's not. ESPN has had negotiating wars with many cable companies/dish networks over its "carriage fee." There was a particularly public fight with Cox four years ago that went all the way to Washington, D.C. You're talking about two corporate giants, duking it out.




We don't have to tell you about what's going on with the NFL Network; chances are you already know. Could cable companies cut off ESPN, or send it to a higher tier of subscription? Maybe, but the BCS is a giant bargaining chip for the Sports Mouse. Chances are good the cable companies will yell "uncle" and just pass the costs on, knowing full well the consumer can't do without college football bowl season.




2. Forget a playoff. At least until 2014, when this current deal would expire, but likely well beyond. ESPN was a primary critic of the BCS in recent years - because it didn't have the BCS. Now that it does, expect the criticism to dial down to the SEC only guys on CBS - and nobody much cares what they think.



And if you're imagining that ESPN might morph the BCS into an eight-team playoff or something, just remember: A true "playoff" likely falls back under the domain of the NCAA. That would possibly be an entirely separate contract to negotiate for television rights. And ESPN might not get those rights.





3. More ESPN talking heads talking more rot. The worry about ESPN trying to influence public opinion - the voters in the Coaches' Poll and Harris Poll, for example - is entirely legitimate. Then again, ESPN's stabs at undue influence haven't much worked, have they? Nebraska made it in 2001 over the loud protests of the network. Ditto Florida State in 2000, an undeserving Oklahoma in 2003.





Mostly, this is bad because ESPN/ABC analysts are trying to stir the pot every week by staging phony debates just to get football fans riled up and hooked on the banter. It makes for a long, annoying day where the coverage is focused on "storylines" instead of the game itself. Hence, we'll see the same four highlights of the same four games for four days. And I don't know about you, but Alabama is one boring team for repetitive highlight packages.





4. More sports will follow. If college football makes hay on pay TV, even bigger sports will follow. March Madness. The Super Bowl. All of the horse races. The World Series. Every golf major except the Masters, which still appreciates something other than the highest bidder.




In the long-term, that's a bad thing, because it begins to move other sports off the basic extended cable platter to an even deeper level of cable tiers, or maybe on to pay-per-view. Might there be a day when you can't watch the NFL Playoffs unless you're willing to pay $29.95 for a one-day pass? Probably.




But could it happen to the Duke-North Carolina basketball series? Maybe.



I guess there is one industry that could be pleased over these developments: Radio.


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