Finally, we get to the stark clear bottom line about the BCS.

I don't know how much the college football world benefited from the hearings on the BCS Friday before Congress. It is unclear if any of the muddied water got filtered or the push towards a playoff gained any ground.

I don't personally know BCS coordinator and ACC commissioner John Swofford.

I think we'd get along great on the golf course, he seems like a decent guy. I'm sure his wife and kids love him and he's an effective administrator and educated man.

But every time I read or hear Swofford talk about the BCS, there is this air of arrogance and elitism caked throughout the sentences he utters when he explains the reasons why we have the BCS in place.

I thank Swofford, however, for delivering before Congress, on the record, a clear and succinct definition of why the BCS exists.

I'm grateful Swofford spelled it out for all of us and let it fly.

Said Swofford: "It (the BCS) represents the marketplace."

There. Out in the open, naked and bare. He couldn't have accentuated the point any better if he'd pinned Texas Republican Joe Barton to the hearing wall with a javelin.

Marketplace.

So, the BCS really has nothing to do with determining a national championship.

It may claim so. It may hope to be a title giver. But it really isn't about that at all. It's a marketplace, an economic square where money is to be made.

Marketplace to me means commerce, money, goods and services, revenue, budgets, expenditures, bonuses, salaries, trading, buying and selling.

College football is about X's and O's, defenses and offenses, skill positions and big linemen battling in the trenches.

Marketplace? College football is about competition, hopefully on an equal playing field, striped white lines on (preferably) a green surface with young men battling one another to score touchdowns, score extra points and kick field goals.

Swofford instructed us it is about the marketplace: deals, transactions, contracts, acquisitions, payments, shares and dividends.

Marketplace? I've covered college football for 35 years, chasing storylines of heroes and goats, big plays, All-Americans, a Heisman Trophy and Outland Trophy winner here and Doak Walker Award winner there. I've watched amazing acts of balance, speed and accuracy and marveled at the guts and gifts of football players who have brought people to their feet and extracted tears from eyes over their brilliant ability.

I've seen celebrations by players and coaches after dramatic wins and also witnessed the anguish of devoted young men who walked off the field after a devastating loss, their world of the moment at an end.