Is this racist? Here in the age of Obama, that’s hard to imagine.

But something’s broken in a sport that certainly has no problem recruiting tough black kids to help chase those $10 million BCS payouts. Maybe because coaching football involves elbow-rubbing with alums and banquet speeches and fund raising, major schools feel a lot more comfortable with a white coach out in front. It can’t be because of a lack of worthy candidates (I believe “qualified” is the popular term exclusively associated with black candidates) or interest for those plum jobs.

What college football needs is a revolution, in the same manner as the one that shook up college basketball. And that starts with results.

College basketball didn’t wake up with the times until John Thompson began winning at Georgetown in the early ‘80s. And only then were blacks considered for jobs other than the designated recruiter who could “relate” better to kids from the ‘hood. The sudden hiring in college basketball was also racial stereotyping, although this time, in reverse: Oh, black coaches are capable of national championships.

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Trend setting and copycatting is big in sports. All it takes is one championship black coach to change everything. Nobody has come close, but then, not many have had the chance. If 10 black coaches have jobs and none turn into winners, does this mean no black men are capable of producing winners? That’s a silly mentality.

Shannon took over a broken Miami program and at least restored some respectability. Tyrone Willingham couldn’t win at Notre Dame (nor Washington), which didn’t help. Gill was only 20-30 at Buffalo, so his true coaching ability will surface on a bigger level, where he will (and should) be judged the same as a white coach.

So the results are mixed. The John Thompson moment will come when someone does win at a Kansas, Virginia or Louisville, all of whom hired black coaches lately, then gets the job at a Nebraska or Oklahoma or Texas, and wins there as well.

That’s years away. Even then, one successful coach won’t be enough to make it happen. Major college football will need a Branch Rickey, someone who stands up and says “their problem” is also “our problem.”

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