Alabama, Auburn uniting against Protect College Sports Act could show bill's fatal flaw

We haven't really delved into the Xs and Os of the Protect College Sports Act's attempt to pass through Congress because, well, covering Capitol Hill isn't why we got into this business and it's not why you read us. But we'll pop in to give updates as necessary, like when Alabama and Auburn set their differences aside to unit against the PCSA's passage.

"In its current form, (the PCSA) solves little of what geneuienly challenges college athletics and leaves the central questions to the courts, inviting the very litigation it claims to prevent," the letter, co-signed by UA and AU's respective system and campus presidents, reads. 

Whether Alabama and Auburn's problems with the bill are correct or not isn't really the point here. The tl;dr of the battle lines around the PCSA are that the SEC and Big Ten are against it, everyone else is for it, and the bill's sponsors -- Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) -- believe it can pass against the wishes of the two richest, most powerful conferences in college athletics.

And to that I respond... maybe!

Texas and Texas A&M have already united in a joint statement against the PCSA, and Cruz has said his state's two biggest, SEC-branded institutions' opposition will not sway his vote. “I love Texas and A&M, but they are going to thrive and win national championships. If we don’t act, I’m not sure any other Texas program survives. I look around Texas and imagine a world without TCU, SMU or Baylor or Texas Tech or Houston or Rice," Cruz said last month.

Not only are the SEC and Big Ten rich and powerful, they're also just big, period. I count 13 states whose only Power 4 schools are SEC/Big Ten institutions: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Presumably, the senators from those states will vote how their flagship university wants them to vote. And that doesn't count states like Ohio and Oklahoma, where one state school is much more prominent than the other. Are Ohio's two Senators going to side with Cincinnati over The Ohio State University? Oklahoma's Senators going to choose OSU over OU? The same goes for Pennsylvania, where Penn State's sword swings wider than Pitt's. What about Indiana? Do you ride against the wishes of IU and Purdue to take Notre Dame's side? 

Clearly, Sens. Cantwell and Cruz think they have the votes. The White House is behind the PCSA, so 50 would be enough (assuming the bill stays out of filibuster hell), with Vice President JD Vance presumably casting the tie-breaking 51st vote. 

Maybe the strategy of ignoring the concerns of 34 mostly public, state-flagship institutions will prove to be the right one. But if it isn't, it'll be a backfire that even a political novice like myself could see coming.