College football’s Bowl Championship Series is a joke. There are few things dumber in sports than having teams play 13 games and then having a collection of computers determine who’s number one and number two. As much as I have always enjoyed bowl games (though there are WAYYYYYYYYY too many) college football should long ago have instituted a playoff system that takes the top eight or 16 teams and plays them down to a final two, just like every other sport does.

But it’s not a congressional issue.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, should not be calling for Justice Department investigations into the BCS – at least not because it’s a crappy system. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, is free to think the system is unfair – he’s not wrong about that. Major conference or not, any team that wins all of their regular season games should have at least a shot to win or lose the national championship on the field

But as unfair and stupid as it is, he and Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Illinois, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee (Really? The House Energy and Commerce Committee needs its own subcommittee? Maybe these elected clowns, err, officials would be better off spending their time trying to eliminate layers of government and making the system more efficient? Just a thought) should not be co-sponsoring bills to change the system – certainly not now, when there are so many other things for them to be spending time on and, in my opinion, not ever.

But yes, that subcommittee Wednesday approved legislation aimed at forcing college football to adopt a playoff system.

The bill, according to an Associated Press story, would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision game as a national championship unless it results from a playoff.

Why does government feel it needs to be involved in everything? Why should Congress have a voice in how the NCAA determines its champions? Thankfully there were, in my opinion, some voices of reason. “With all due respect, I really think we have more important things to spend our time on,” says Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., who also doesn’t like the BCS, but according to the AP shouted “no” audibly during a voice vote.

The last I checked the country was still fighting two wars, negotiating controversial health care reform, dealing with a massive-and-growing deficit and trying to solve a lagging economy. I think elected officials have plenty going on without figuring out how the NCAA should or shouldn’t market their final game of the season.

As screwed up as the system is and as much as I love the sport, this is just football. It’s an escape from reality. It’s a game. There’s big money involved but at the end of the day, no matter who wins and who loses – and who gets screwed over by the BCS – this is not an issue in which government should be getting itself involved.