President Obama supports a College Football Playoff

By Kevin Kelley -
President Obama
Mark Goldman/Icon SMI

College football is moving closer and closer to a playoff beginning with the 2014 season. President Barack Obama has been a big proponent of a college football playoff and recently sat down with Grantland.com’s Bill Simmons to talk about that issue, among others.

Obama told Simmons that he prefers an 8-team playoff, but that “four is a good place to start.” Here is the full transcript of their chat on the playoff issue:

BS: Tell me about the college football playoff system that you once upon a time pushed for.

Obama: Looks like — I hear there’s talk that they’re going to at least start maybe with a four-team playoff, which —

BS: So you’re happy about this?

Obama: Well, I’d rather see it eight teams, but four is a good place to start. I think that gets us on the right trend. Nothing is more frustrating than at the end of the season, nobody knows who won. And what, there is some poll? Coaches make a decision? Nobody knows what that means. Because part of what makes sports great, part of what makes March Madness great, the NFL playoffs great, is every once in a while something happens during the playoffs that shows the character of a team.

Look at the Giants this year. Nobody would have picked them. They wouldn’t have been crowned as champions if you had a coaches’ poll at the end of the year. But they made the plays when it counted.

With the BCS contract set to expire after the games in January of 2014, the time is ripe for a college football playoff to be implemented in time for the 2014 season/January 2015 games. A four-team playoff appears to be the most plausible scenario.

How the conference commissioners will determine the four teams that make the playoffs is another issue. Do you have to win a conference championship to qualify? Or will the playoff teams be the top four in the BCS or AP Poll?

Whatever the case may be, a college football playoff in any fashion is a big step in the right direction.

Comments (13)

Who cares what he thinks. Fix the economy and quit giving money to non-established industries. Free enterprise does not mean you don’t have to use your own money!

I guess someone getting elected automatically makes him (or her) an expert on everything.

OK guys, quit acting like dumbasses. Since Obama has been in office, we have: gotten out of Iraq, repealed DADT, raised unemployment from when Bush was in office, passed groundbreaking environmental legislation, and raised the Dow by thousands of points since Bush left office. Fact of the matter is, our country is in better shape now than it is when Obama entered office. If that doesn’t make Obama a good president, then I don’t know what does. Yes, the national debt is still high, but that has nothing to do with Obama and everything to do with a) the tendency for debt to grow at an exponential rate due to compounding interest, and b) lack of revenue due to tax cuts by Republicans in Congress who have a hard-on for Reagan. Though if you still feel that Obama is doing a poor job as President, I highly recommend voting for Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum (said with stifled laughter).

Kro thinks that “raised unemployment” is a GOOD thing??? AND called others “dumbasses” ??? Typical, clueless liberal.
I’m with the rest of you; who gives a damn what Obama thinks. Stop bankrupting my children and their children to be, and let the NCAA fix college football. Once ratings go down and money is starting to be lost i.e. last years BCS “Championship” game’s horrible ratings, a playoff system will evolve. It’s called Capitalism, moron. Look it up.

As George Bush might say, “I @#$!@# you all, but thanks for blaming it on the black guy.”

Why don’t you try looking stuff up, listening to the news and becoming informed on how our government works instead of riding the “let blame Obama for what Bush did” bandwagon? Sorry Kevin, but if you post something about a black politician on a football website, be prepared for a shellacking of ungrounded slandering by some rednecks, and one enlightened guy to straighten them out.