November 18, 2008|By BILL ORDINE
Barack Obama's election as the next president of the United States has obviously generated a lot of excitement and optimism in a country desperate for solutions and, yes, change.
But among the topics that the president-elect and Republican John McCain wrestled over in their campaign debates, I don't recall a college football playoff being mentioned. And on all those whistle-stops where Obama talked eloquently and convincingly about the top issues in Americans' minds - the economy, the war in Iraq, health care, education - again, I don't remember any discussion of BCS rankings.
This is not to say that college football isn't in need of a playoff. That's not the issue here.
The issue is whether a newly elected president faced with enormous national and global challenges should be saying, as Obama did on 60 Minutes on Sunday regarding his preference for a college football playoff: "So, I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do."
What?
Look, if the president-elect is a sports fan, that's great. I say the more the merrier. He can good-naturedly chime in on playoff systems, baseball instant replays and fluorescent hockey pucks if he wants.
But to use the Oval Office as a bully pulpit for how a college football champion is decided?
Look, while Obama's victory was a 2-1 landslide in electoral votes, 46 percent of the popular vote did go for McCain. A lot of those folks are suspicious of further government involvement on all kinds of fronts. Obama's opinion on something as frivolous as a football playoff system only fuels the skepticism that this administration won't be able to keep its hands off anything in American life.
