Get it straight, Hatch: Blame the voters, not BCS
Hate Mail: Mom, is that you?
Orrin Hatch thinks you're stupid. I disagree with him, of course. You're not stupid. Not at all.
But if you support Orrin Hatch in his efforts to avenge the undefeated 2008 Utah football team and blow up the BCS, then I take it back. You're an idiot. Which is exactly what Hatch is counting on. Your idiocy.
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| Sen. Orrin Hatch has to be smart enough to know who the real target is. (Getty Images) |
Which means right now he's just pretending to be stupid. And hoping you really are.
Because the facts don't support him in his quest to blow up the Bowl Championship Series. Intelligence doesn't support him. If you support him, well, you know what that means. No facts. No intelligence. Which means you cannot be taken seriously.
Just like Orrin Hatch.
He's making all the noise he can make, though. When his little hearing on Capitol Hill failed July 7, he went to the biggest kazoo in the media, ESPN, and wrote an Internet column there Tuesday in support of his quest. Hatch is a capable writer, or capable of hiring the right ghost writer, because his column was persuasive. For example, he twisted Nebraska chancellor (and BCS exec) Harvey Perlman into an ugly little pretzel by using Perlman's own ill-chosen words against him (and the BCS).
"[When] Harvey Perlman was asked what more last year's University of Utah undefeated football team could have done to get a shot at the national championship," Hatch wrote, "[he] said that the one thing Utah could have done ... would have been to play the University of Nebraska's schedule."
Which is ridiculous. Utah can't play Nebraska's schedule. We all understand that. Utah is in the Mountain West. Nebraska is in the Big 12. Perlman made a dumb comment, but it's up to all of us -- regardless of how little Hatch thinks of all of us -- to see through the smoke and mirrors and understand the facts.
The BCS is to college football what the NCAA is to college sports in general: It's not in charge. Not really. It's only doing the bidding of its members. So when the NCAA passes a really stupid rule saying its basketball coaches can sign just five players in a given year or that the 64-team NCAA tournament should add a 65th team, that's not really the NCAA passing that rule. That's the NCAA membership -- the schools themselves. The NCAA takes the heat, but only because even a stupid person knows how to start a fire.
Same thing here. The BCS isn't the group that kept Utah out of the national championship game. The BCS merely did the bidding of a whole lot of human beings, and a handful of computers.
You do understand that, right?
Orrin Hatch hopes you don't. He's hoping you ignore the facts and put your intelligence on a shelf.
So don't do that. I'm depending on you, just like Hatch is. But unlike Hatch, I'm depending on you to show some smarts. People in Utah, you don't count. Not because you're not smart, but because you're hopelessly biased. And I get that. Your Utah Utes have finished undefeated twice in the last five years without a national championship to show for it, and you're angry. I understand.
But it's not the BCS' fault.
That's the truth.
The BCS did its job. Nothing more or less. The people didn't want Utah in the national title game. The people. Not the BCS. The people spoke. The BCS merely listened.
A total of 61 human beings voted in the final USA Today coaches' poll before the BCS matchups were picked. Another 113 human beings voted in the final Harris Poll. That's 174 human beings. None of them gave Utah a No. 1 vote.
Zero.
Combined, those polls form two-thirds of the BCS standings. The other one-third goes to the computers -- and the computers didn't want Utah in the national title game either. None of the 65 voters in the Associated Press poll or the 17 people who vote in the Legends Poll, whatever that is. Point being, nobody thought Utah was the best team in college football during the season last year.
After the fact, sure. Utah beat Alabama and that was impressive. In the title game, Oklahoma rolled over against Florida and that was despicable. We look back on those two results and wonder, Hmmm, how would Utah have fared against Florida? Utah certainly couldn't have fared worse.
Hindsight is easy, though. And wrong. For example, watch this: When Orrin Hatch first ran for senator in 1976, one of his biggest complaints against incumbent Frank Moss was that Moss' 18-year tenure in Washington D.C. had caused him to lose touch with his constituents back home in Utah.
Good point.
Hatch beat Moss ... and has been in Washington D.C. for 33 years.
See that point? Hindsight is easy, but it's malleable. It can be manipulated. I could right now suggest that after 33 years -- almost twice the length of Moss' reign -- Hatch has lost touch with his constituents in Utah.
But then, that would be wrong. Hatch hasn't lost touch with the whims of Utah. Hatch hasn't lost touch with his constituents. They want the BCS blown up, and he's doing his part.
It's up to the other 49 states -- maybe 48; we know how you feel, Idaho -- to see through the ruse and show Hatch that we're not as stupid as he thinks we are.
The BCS stays.
Hatch? Go away.
