In the interest of full disclosure, I must state that I am a registered Republican.

In addition, I have gone on record for years writing that a college football playoff system would not be good for college football.

That said, you can imagine how I feel about President-Elect Obama stating repeatedly that, “I will throw my weight around” to achieve a college playoff system.

“It would add three extra weeks to the season,” he said at the conclusion of an interview on CBS‘ “60 Minutes” Sunday. “You could trim back on the regular season. I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I’m going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Now, I am not an expert on the economy or foreign relations by any means, but I do know an uninformed opinion when I see one on issues pertaining to college football. And his stance on this issue is cavalier, uneducated and knee-jerky, at best.

I could picture him holding up a wet finger to see which way the wind was blowing before he ranted about the BCS.

While proponents of such a playoff system seem to be in the majority, there is overwhelming evidence to keep the BCS system as is, with a minor tweak or so — as is done each season.

First, understand that college football’s attendance and TV ratings continue to climb each and every season.

In other words, the game doesn’t need to be fixed:

  • What makes college football unique is that because there is no so-called playoff, the regular season is the most-interesting and most-important regular season in all of sports. Each and every game is crucial, not just the games involved in the playoff, should there be one.
  • A playoff would diminish the season-ending rivalries, the backbone of the game. For instance, if we had a playoff during the 2006 season, how would have you felt about the Ohio State-Michigan game, when both teams entered with 11-0 records? Would have Jim Tressel rested his starters, given the fact a playoff began the next week? Would the game been as important?
  • The bowls not only have been good for college football, they have been ESSENTIAL. They have paid for university facilities, salaries, scholarships and entire sports programs themselves for more than seven decades, not to mention providing once-in-lifetime memories for thousands of players, coaches and fans.
  • There would be attendance issues with the first- and second-round games of a playoff, if they were played on neutral fields. After all, fans cannot afford to travel all over the country to three consecutive games. If they were held in home stadiums, as per the NFL,  how would that be fair? (Picture Florida playing on the road in December at Ohio Stadium).

And as far as Obama’s comment on cutting back the length of the regular season, fine, go ahead and do that — and watch women’s field hockey and lacrosse and water polo, etc., be eliminated by most major universities because there are no funds to pay for them. Then there would be Title Nine issues.

You see, if the former senator from Illinois has done as much research on other issues as he has on this college football playoff idea, I am growing worried about the serious issues facing our country.

Obama needs to stick to the issues he was elected to solve. Because after all, if he starts his White House tenure by creating a college football playoff, what’s next — eliminating the DH in the American League, lengthening Augusta National, or reducing the Indianapolis 500 by 100 miles to save fuel?

Yes, there could be no limit to what serious problems he could fix.

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