This promise grew out of a softball question at the end of a 60 Minutes interview on Nov. 17.

A smirking Steve Kroft asked what Barack Obama would do, as president, to get a playoff system in college football.

"This is important," Obama said, in mock seriousness. "I think any sensible person would say that if you've got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season and many of them have one loss or two losses — there's no clear, decisive winner — that we should be creating a playoff system. Eight teams. That would be three rounds to determine a national champion. It would add three weeks to the season. You could trim back the regular season. I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this."

"So I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit; I think it's the right thing to do," Obama said. Then he smiled broadly.

Honestly, we didn't think this one would come up so soon, certainly not in the middle of March Madness, not to mention the ongoing economic recession.

But on March 25, Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, ranking minority member of the subcommittee, announced their agenda of hearings and legislation for the new session of Congress. And among the 18 items on that list: college football's Bowl Championship Series.

Here's what the news release said: "The Bowl Championship Series ('BCS') generates revenue for participating schools at a level that is unmatched in the history of collegiate sports. Even teams that never play in a BCS game are able to reap the financial benefits simply by virtue of their membership in one of the six original BCS conferences. Though the BCS claims to represent all of college football — even going so far as to call the winner of the BCS Championship Game the 'National Champion' — the BCS system leaves nearly half of all the teams in college football at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to qualifying for the millions of dollars paid out every year. This system"s critics allege that the system is not only unfair to the football fans throughout the country, but also to the colleges and universities nationwide that depend on revenues from their football teams to fund their other athletic programs. They further argue that, at the very least, a fair system would provide equal opportunity, regardless of conference, for all teams to play their way into one of the BCS"s bowl games and, if they"re good enough, to compete for the national championship."

The announcement notes that the subcommittee "will hold hearings to investigate these issues" and that Hatch will introduce legislation to "rectify this situation."

It's no coincidence that Hatch is leading the charge. As a senator from Utah, Hatch (BYU, Class of '59) has been railing against the BCS system ever since undefeated Utah was kept out of the national title game this year. Under the BCS, some powerhouse conferences get automatic bids to participate in the series, while others from smaller conferences do not. The two teams that play in the championship game are selected based on various polls and computer rankings. This year, it was No. 1 Florida (12-1) against No. 2 Oklahoma (12-1); Florida won 24-14 and claimed the title.

Hatch called the BCS "anticompetitive," "unfair" and "un-American” and warned that it also might violate antitrust laws. And he swears he's not just saying that because of Utah.

"The problems with the BCS go beyond last year"s debacle, which left the University of Utah, the only team to finish the season undefeated, out of the national championship picture," Hatch said. "Put simply, the BCS is a system that ensures that particular conferences and teams maintain competitive and financial advantages over the rest of the schools in the country."

He said he hoped college football would adopt reforms without the involvement of Congress. But it looks to us like Congress is itching to get involved. Hatch's office did not provide any details of what his proposed legislation may look like, and said it's not likely to come up until the fall (conveniently in the middle of football season, we note). The announcement was made simply as a placemarker for the subcommittee's coming agenda this year.

The House has also joined the fray. In January, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced H.R. 390, otherwise known as the "College Football Playoff Act of 2009."

We quote Section 3, Prohibited Act: "It shall be unlawful for any person to promote, market or advertise a post-season National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) football game as a championship or national championship game, unless the game is the final game of a single elimination post-season playoff system for which all NCAA Division I FBS conferences and unaffiliated Division I FBS teams are eligible."

We note that both of these proposals are being driven by Republicans, though Barton's bill has a Democratic co-sponsor. There's no indication that the White House has exerted any influence in moving this forward.

And for the record, this still wouldn't qualify Columbia University (where Obama got his undergraduate degree) or Harvard (where he got his law degree) to compete for a national championship, as they play in a lower division in football. And needless to say, it would still leave out Occidental College (where Obama attended for two years before transferring to Columbia). The Oxy Tigers play in Division III (and went 9-0 in the regular season last fall, before losing in the first round of the Division III playoffs).

This is still way early, and again, there's no evidence that Obama has begun to "throw his weight around" yet. But we thought there's been enough to move this to In the Works.