Obama lacks enough heft to tackle this one

The politics of BCS

President-elect Barack Obama mentioned recently that fixing the economy might be a two-term challenge.

Just wait until he really sinks his teeth into this college football playoff mess. The NFL probably will have a franchise on the moon before there's a playoff.

Obama genuinely wants a playoff. He's suggested an eight-team format and said he might "throw his weight around" toward that end.

Bless his heart. It's in the right place. Put it to a popular vote among college football fans, and we'd have a playoff under way inside the next month. But Obama is the wrong sort of president to make an impact on college football. He might as well punt right now.

College football, at least what used to be called the NCAA Division I-A level, is the private domain of television, TV money and the 120 or so campus presidents who determine postseason policies. That coalition will be a lot more difficult to bring down than the Berlin Wall.

The Gipper himself didn't even venture into that challenge, and Ronald Reagan loved sports. So did Gerald Ford, who lettered at Michigan. Ditto John Kennedy, who used to be the Commissioner of the White House BFL -- Backyard Football League. Kennedy kept a football in the Oval Office.

Dwight Eisenhower loved to see Army beat Navy, and Jimmy Carter loved to see Navy beat Army. Bill Clinton was more in tune with Arkansas basketball, but is said to have been a card-carrying member of the Hog Hat Society in the old days, when a football game between his Razorbacks and Texas was a two-state celebration.

Don't get me wrong. I like Obama's grit. I like that he's got an offensive game plan that's outside the box. But when he throws his weight around, I make it to be roughly 175 pounds. That's squarely in the middle of place-kicker territory, and he'll line up opposite maybe 10 tons of collegiate presidential beef.