In a week of NBA intrigue, international soccer and Mike Wilbon staring at Kendra’s jugs, you may have missed this: One of the two league commissioners who is against the college football playoff retired. Does this mean we’re closer to what everybody wants? Intern Parrish investigates.

There is always going to be a debate amongst college football fans and administrators on whether or not a playoff should be instituted. There are those, as there always are, that simply don’t want to change the status quo and there are those who simply cannot take another BCS mess. For those in the pro-playoff crowd, last week could be the start of something great.

Tom Hansen, the Pac 10 Commissioner for the last 26 years, announced that he will retire at the end of June. There have been rumors over the last few years that the two men standing in the way of a college football playoff were Tom Hansen and Big 10 Commissioner Jim Delany. Delany, seen in many circles as the most powerful man if college athletics, has been on the record saying that a playoff would do wonders for college football as a whole, but he works for the Big 10, not college football. The Big 10 and the Pac 10 signed a deal with ABC and the Rose Bowl that runs through 2014 that gives each conference a lion’s share of the profits, making it an economic decision to be anti-playoff. Now that Hansen is out of the way, there could be an opening for the Pac-10 to hire a pro-playoff commissioner which could be another step towards ending the farce that is the BCS.

Also written this week was a post on the Orlando Sentinel’s blog that dealt with the slowing economy and how it may affect the college football landscape. In the post, it mentions the fact that many athletic departments rely on state funding for a lot of their money and with many states suffering from the struggling economy, that money could be withdrawn. When schools begin to assess their budgets, they may come to the realization that increased revenue from the major money-making sports (football and basketball) could help their cause. The only sure-fire way to increase the revenues in football is by going to a playoff.

How best to implement a playoff? That is up for debate, and everyone seems to have their own thoughts. All I do know is that last years BCS games were fraudulent on so many levels that one or two more seasons like last year and we could be looking at a college football playoff faster than either Delany or Hansen would like.