The Supreme Court decision involved TV rights. It didn't change the substantive rules of game. That's the problem here. We would be changing a system that works in crowning the best team and maintaining the best regular season in sports.
This is the fundamental disagreement. I don't know anybody who fell in love with CFB because of its great playoff. They fell in love with the regular season and the bowl season.
This isn't about being a blind traditionalist. I supported the four-team playoff because it conserved what was great (the high-stakes regular season) while fixing what was bad (the subjective determination of a champion). It has done its job.
A lot of this just misses the point.
First, the truly substantive "rule change" (for lack of a better description) was when colleges began to offer scholarships to black athletes.
Second, the timing of the Supreme Court case (1984), while not a "rule change" is instructive. Within a decade (early 1990s), we had the reshaping of conferences due to college football TV revenue. Shortly thereafter (1998) we got the BCS system for bypassing the bowl games to play a real national championship game. And since 2014, we have had the College Football Playoff.
Anyone who can't see the rapid evolution, and how it is being driven by football TV revenue, is just ignoring the obvious.
Third, this is not about "why you fell in love with college football". Who gives a **** whether you like blondes or brunettes? Absolutely nobody "fell in love" with college football because of bowl season. Bowl season was a nice pat-on-the-back for about 40% of the teams who had decent, but not great, seasons. Sure, New Year's Day used to mean something more, but it has become so bastardized and balkanized that it has virtually no meaning any longer. We now talk about bowls being "New Year's Eve or later" or some such ridiculous description.
Finally, there is a lot of nonsense about the "true meaning" of the college football "regular season". It is EVERYONE'S goal to go undefeated, but to argue that everything else must be subjugated to that goal is just ridiculous. The last 3 national champions have been undefeated. Before that, the prior FOUR national champs had 1 loss. Here are the UNDEFEATED national champs for the last 45 years:
1976 Pitt (Independent, a real outlier here)
1979 Alabama (Bear's last hurrah)
1980 UGa (an SEC outlier, as Gaytors will tell you)
1981 Clemson (an outlier until Dabo came to town)
1984 BYU (truly an outlier)
1986 Pedo State (undeserved, but UM would have been undefeated instead)
1987 UM
1988 Notre Dame (undeserved, but UM would have been undefeated instead)
1991 UM/Washington
1992 Alabama (undeserved, but UM would have been undefeated instead)
1994 Nebraska
1995 Nebraska
1997 Michigan/Nebraska
1998 Tennessee (SEC outlier)
1999 F$U
2000 Oklahomo
2001 UM GOAT
2002 Ohio Taint (undeserved, but UM would have been undefeated instead)
2004 USC - VACATED
2005 Texas
2009 Alabama
2010 Auburn (an SEC outlier)
2013 F$U
2018 Clemson
2019 LSU
2020 Alabama
So in 20 of the last 45 seasons (nearly 1/3 of all college football history), the champion had 1 or 2 losses and/or ties.
The whole myth of "the college football regular season is just so magical because you can't make a single mistake" is, in fact, false, as more than half of the time in the modern/let-black-athletes-play/let-colleges-own-their-own-TV-rights era, the national champion has made one or more "mistakes" during the regular season.
But but but, some will argue, it's the high-stakes pressure to avoid losing that is so magical. Annnnnd? Whether you take 8 or 16 teams to the playoffs, every regular season game will still have everything on the line. Winning the conference and/or getting the highest seed humanly possible will still be incredibly valuable. No coach will sit players out of Top 25 matchups, no player will opt out of a single game, and no craptastic/contractually-obligated bowl games will need to be played by teams that just don't care anymore after having lost 1 or 2 games and/or being snubbed by the selection committee.
People love college football because the teams mean something. Many people are alums, or grew up close-to/rooting-for Ol' State U. Unlike in the NFL, there is no draft that rewards tanking or unlimited free agency for the highest dollar amount (insert cynical joke here). It is the pomp and circumstance of games played on Saturday, from noon to midnight, the marching bands, the cheerleaders, the tailgates, and the traditions.
If anyone claims to have fallen in love with college football over the pursuit of (a) a single undefeated team and/or (b) two weeks of crappy bowl games leading up to 3 or 4 meaningful bowl games, then they need to have their heads examined.
Nobody cares about the bowl games any more. Very few people travel to them. Do your research, most of the bowl game tickets are sold to locals well in advance, and OCCASIONALLY a game will be valued so highly by one or two fanbases that the secondary ticket market will perk up.
****, even the players and coaches don't much care anymore. Players opt out and coaches take new jobs without bothering to play the games.
And, as always, C.R.E.A.M. Pretty soon, ABC/ESPN (and/or Fox) will back up the Brinks truck for live content during the slow periods of December-January, and none of our "but I fell in love with college football for the bowl games" nonsense is going to have any impact.
Dolla dolla bill, y'all.
Get used to it. The bowls are dying and the playoffs will grow, no matter who wants to whine that Alabama will "destroy" the #16 team in the land.
