Playoff supporters launch national campaign

WASHINGTON (AP) - Proponents of a college football playoff are launching a new national campaign aimed at taking down the BCS.

The "We Want a Playoff Now" campaign was introduced Thursday on Capitol Hill. It includes the lobbying firm The Moffett Group, headed up by former Rep. Toby Moffett, D-Conn., and the communications firm, New Partners.

Along with that effort, two congressmen are forming the Congressional Collegiate Sports Caucus. The congressmen, Texas Republican Joe Barton and Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen, are reintroducing Barton's 2009 bill aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system. The longshot bill would ban - as unfair and deceptive - the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I football game as a national championship unless it's the outcome of a playoff.

Bowl Championship Series executive director Bill Hancock said that coaches and athletes prefer the bowl system to a postseason tournament, adding that decisions about college sports are best left to those in higher education, not politicians.