Obama Thinks It's Time to Change College Football: No We Can't

If you heard now President-Elect Barack Obama on Monday Night Football with Chris Berman during halftime, you'd know he mentioned he'd like to change college football, namely the BCS system, or add a playoff.

First off, here is a secret: Barack Obama has now shown the first mistake he will make in office come Jan. 20, 2009. I'm sure he has other pressing matters to attend to, and I bet it is another campaign promise never to be fulfilled, but he does have the influence to change it.

He wants to change a sport which he does not know that well? I mean, he is a basketball guy, not a football guy. He needs to stick to that and stay away from college football. Please, Future President of the United States, for God's sake, stay away from it.

I'll tell you why he should leave it alone. Basically everyone complains every year that their team deserves a spot in the National Championship game, even if they have one or two losses and there are two unbeatens at the top at one or two.

Before the BCS system, college football was actually worse. It is hard to believe, but it was, such as in the early '90s. Teams had to confined to certain bowl games, and if the Championship game was in the bowl game that year, then those top teams would play for the title.

Miami is one team that got shut out of the NC Game one year, and the No. 1 and No. 3 played because it was in the Sugar Bowl, a place where the ACC does not play. Ohio State is another example of the same thing.

The Gator Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, and others had to be sponsored by certain conferences. You didn't have party crashers as you do now, such as Boise State or Hawaii from the WAC.

Previously the big conferences, like the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, and ACC, were the only ones who got to play in great bowl games—and those conferences were the only ones who won National Championships.

If you were in the independents, such as Notre Dame, you had to be No. 1 to have even a small chance to get in the National Championship game. If not, you were out and most likely put in another smaller bowl game.

Conferences like the WAC and Mountain West, who we believed to be the weak links in college football, could never get in the big bowl games at all, and it was not because they didn't have the talent.

If you want to have a conversation on the BCS leaving, that is fine, but remember the fighting over the teams that should be in now is going to be far worse than what it will be without the BCS.

To those who want a playoff in college football: Tell me another sport that doesn't have a playoff. Can you think of one? College football is exciting because all year long is a playoff. Just like in the Final Four you have an elimination—you just don't play the top teams.

Then at the end of the year the best teams play each other, the teams that got through the all year long playoff. Take Texas Tech and Texas for an example. It was like a bowl game and could be a National Title game, but like a playoff, it eliminated Texas.

Now Texas Tech has to play OK State and then Oklahoma. Alabama is playing LSU and then rival Auburn, and after that possibly Florida in the SEC Championship game. So it is just like a playoff in each conference. Maybe they don't have SEC vs. Pac-10 or Big Ten vs. Big 12, but it is still just as good.

If not as good, it has got to be better. I mean, think about it—just about a five-month playoff in football. March Madness can't compete a bit with that.

Of course, as always this is my opinion, but what do you think?