As campaign promises go, the one from President Barack Obama on a college football playoff system doesn't have the significance of his pledge to pull troops out of Afghanistan or seek reductions in nuclear stockpiles.

(It's one of two light-hearted promises in our Obameter database of 508, the other being his vow to buy his daughters a puppy, which earned a Promise Kept.)

But Obama's promise about college playoffs became reality Tuesday when 12 university presidents agreed on a deal to create a four-team playoff system to replace the Bowl Championship Series.

As far as we can tell, Obama didn't twist the arms of NCAA officials, but he made at least four public statements between November 2008 and April 2009 that he thought college football needed a better way to determine its champion.

To ESPN's Chris Berman in February 2009: "I think it is about (time) that we had playoffs in college football. You know, I'm fed up with these computer rankings and this and that and the other. Get eight teams, the top eight teams right at the end, you've got a playoff; decide on a national champion."

In remarks to the Florida Gators football team in April 2009: "I don't want to stir up controversy. You guys are the national champions -- I'm not backing off the fact we need a playoff system. But I have every confidence that you guys could have beat anybody else. And so we'll see how that plays itself out."

He made the original promise on 60 Minutes in November 2008 that he would "throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do."

As we noted in previous posts, Congress held hearings and considered bills about the BCS system, with some lawmakers decrying the bowl games as economically unjust. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, have been especially vocal in revising the current approach to naming a champion.

"It`s one of the things that President Obama and myself agree upon. And go Obama. I`m for him all the way," Barton said in a 2009 interview on MSNBC.

Matthew Sanderson, a spokesman for the federal political action committee, Playoff PAC, said Obama had some influence, although he didn't have an actual role negotiating the new playoffs.

"His use of the bully pulpit did help, though," Sanderson said.

Obama called for eight teams, not four, but the central idea of a single-elimination draw was the same. And his voice seems to have played a role. We rate this a Promise Kept.