I’m officially in the “back in my day” stage of sports fandom. If you’re a youngster reading this, don’t worry, you’ll end up here, too. Us old folks just need to have our sports vents from time to time. Greed is the main culprit for the destruction of most sports. Stupidity is another reason. The ruining of college football has a little bit of both. Let’s dive into it.
A Few Appetizers Before the Main Course
I have a bit of a chaotic brain so I need to dump out a few of the smaller problems before the main issue. While these aren’t the be-all-end-all to college football, they still make it worse than it used to be:
Player Movement
This is the college career of Darian Mensah:
This is so ugly to look at. I’m fine with players being paid, but this is the equivalent of all these players hitting free agency every single year. I’m a big loyalty guy so this type of path sickens me.
Conferences Don’t Matter
All I have to say here is that it is absolutely ridiculous to have USC and UCLA in the Big 10. How in the world can these Cali schools play in the same conference as Iowa and Wisconsin? What a joke.
Social Media Ruined the Heisman
Back in the day, people would form their own opinion. Now, thanks to social media, everyone jumps on the most popular opinion. Whether they do this purposely or not, it’s happening. Take the 2025 Heisman vote, for example. That deserved to be an extremely close vote. You had the historically great season from Ashton Jeanty and the unique two-way greatness of Travis Hunter. But now, thanks to everyone forming their opinion online, the more popular narrative won out, with Hunter winning the Heisman easily. He has 243 more 1st place votes than Jeanty!
The last close Heisman race? That was way back in 2009, when Mark Ingram edged out Toby Gerhart and Colt McCoy. All 3 guys had over 200 1st place votes. The year before that was close, too, and so was 2000 and 2001. It’s no coincidence that Twitter became popular for sports debates around 2010. Bring back close Heisman votes!
Alright, that’s enough of the smaller (albeit frustrating) College Football issues. Let’s address the big Kahuna.
College Football’s Big Problem: The Playoffs
Let’s start with a little history lesson. College football had no playoffs for a long, long time. Even as recently as 2003, there were 2 teams (USC and LSU) with claims to being the National Champion (the joke of a system that led to that is a story in itself). Finally, in 2006, College Football created a true, stand-alone National Championship game.
Then in 2014 came the 4 team playoffs. In my opinion, this was pretty close to being correct. I think 6 teams was the right number. That would allow the top 2 teams, who used to go right to the National Championship, to be rewarded in the form of a Bye week. It would also keep the regular season and Conference Championships meaningful.
The (Over) Expanded Playoff
Instead, College Football made the jump all the way up to 12 teams in 2024. I can’t express this firmly enough- the change to a 12 team playoff completely ruined college football, taking away so much of what made it special. Now, it’s even worse! The playoff is being expanded to 24 teams. THAT IS RIDICULOUS! Allow me to explain.
A 24 team Playoff will take the college football regular season from being EXTREMELY important in the 4 team playoff (same with my preferred 6 team format), to SOMEWHAT important in the 12 team playoff, all the way down to NOT AT ALL important in the 24 team playoff.
The college football regular season isn’t even worth your time anymore. That’s literally what made college football so unique. It felt like every week, teams were playing for their lives. Rivalry games were a chance to crush the hopes and dreams of the other team. You knew that one loss put you in a tough spot and two losses might just be too much to come back from. You felt like the Championship team was the team that represented a year’s worth of great football.
Now, we essentially have a junior NFL. I like the NFL, but we already have that. College football was something so different. Now, go ahead and lose a few regular season games, it doesn’t matter. We had a 3 loss Alabama end up in the playoffs last year. We saw Ohio State lose their last game of the season to rival Michigan a couple of years ago, their second loss of the season. It didn’t matter at all. Same with Texas A&M losing their last game of the season to rival Texas last year. None of these games matter anymore!
And that is even true of Conference Championship games. That used to be such a fun, must-watch week for college football. Those games will inevitably be cancelled entirely.
Old School Fan Perspective
If you are new to college football, maybe you love how it is now, and I can understand that. I can’t understand old school fans supporting this at all. Being a long-time fan suggests that you liked it for what it was, and what it was is nothing close to what it has become. We used to have 5 months of intense action. Now, you can go ahead and skip all of that, focusing just on the playoffs. Don’t we already have other sports for that?
I just don’t see how you can watch the sport the same way anymore. When Alabama used to play Georgia, there was this feeling that the loser of that game would be in big trouble. They’d essentially have to be perfect the rest of the way. Now, who cares? Both teams will get into the playoff, anyway.
Final Thoughts
I’ve heard the arguments about the blowout playoff games being an issue. Same with the seeding in the playoffs. Sure, those things suck, but the bigger problem is how college football fundamentally changed what their sport was all about. You used to get about one strike. Then, it was up to you to play great football the rest of the way. Now, you get strike 1, 2, sometimes even 3, and now 4 with the latest expansion.
Add to that the constant player movement and disastrous conferences, plus no more close Heisman votes, and we’re left with a totally different sport than old heads like me grew up loving.
So what do we do about it? Nothing. Sadly, money talks. Just wake me up for the playoffs I guess.
