Obama: College Football needs a playoff system

I often debate in my mind which is better: college football or the NFL. College football has all the pageantry going for it, and I believe that from the beginning of the football season in September to the first week in December, it dominates the NFL...then it all goes to hell.

The College Bowl system is decent and provides a warm and fuzzy feeling for mediocre teams and general football fans during the Holidays. But the way the NCAA, or the BCS, or the NCF, or whoever the organization is that crowns the champion is arbitrary, unsatisfactory, and tainted. The fact that we have had to endure watching over-rated Ohio State teams get smoked two years in a row in the National Championship game is a joke.

The football season should be organized as follows: Eight teams should qualify for the playoffs. The four "original" BCS bowls, the Orange, Rose, Sugar, and Fiesta, should serve as the quarterfinal games. This would re-establish the credibility and re-invigorate the pageantry of these classic games. One week later, the (insert corporate sponsorship here) National Semifinals should take place, and the college equivalent of the Super Bowl should occur exactly two weeks after New Years Day on January 15th.

It's a common argument that this would keep the "student" atheletes in-season for too long. Crap. Anyone who makes this argument is totally out of touch with college life. First of all, Fall semester final exams occur a couple weeks before Christmas, and that is after the NCAA regular season ends. Any class time missed in the first half of January, if the schools are even in session then, is not that big of a deal. It's much more important that the players have time off during the exam period which they do and will.

The advantages of this system are:
1) Re-establish importance, implications, and competitveness of the four biggest bowls
2) 8 teams is an adequate size for the playoff field. 4 is too small, and 12 (like the NFL) or 16 would be too many teams. 8 teams also allows for schools to know in advance where they will play on New Year's day, and they can prepare their ticket distribution and organize team, unversity official, and alumni travel.
3) It would only extend the current season by one week. Last year's game was on Jan. 8th, and this system would always have the title game on January 15th.
4) This should have been number one: it will stop or drastically curb all the griping that occurs in the month of December in the media and on the sports talk shows. The #3 teams who are left out in the cold often have legitimate gripes. But the complaints of the #9 team who is left out of the field will not be nearly as dramatic. The #9 and #10 team may complain, but that's their problem.

An Eight team playoff would work. It would re-establish the importance of the four major bowl games, would keep the existing bowl games intact, would not compromise the academic integrity of the players, would minimize the deleterious effects of having or not having conference championship games, and it would be exciting and fun to watch. Most importantly, we would feel more confident that the National Champion is truly the best team in the nation.