On Tuesday, Volley’s Word of the Day – it’s part of my Alexa-collated morning briefing – was “neophobia.” It means, as wordsmiths might guess, fear of the new.
Having reached a certain age, I try not to put myself in position to be labeled a neophobe, which seems a polite way of saying “old coot.” Honesty, alas, compels me to state the following: I’m having a hard time with college football.
A season unlike any other – a season none of us could have imagined as recently as, say, 2022 – is upon us. There’s no more Power 5, the Pac-12 having plopped into the dustbin of history. A four-team playoff has tripled in size. Of the four schools that graced last season’s playoff, three have new coaches. The NCAA has washed its hands of policing NIL, leading us to ask yet again: What does the NCAA do?
Last season wound down with an undefeated Power 5 team being omitted from the playoff, which led to that program suing its conference and to a 13-0 team losing its New Year’s Six bowl by 60 points when two dozen players declined to participate. Last season ended with the championship trophy being handed to a coach who’d been suspended for six games – three by his school, three more by his conference, none by the NCAA.
After that who-cares bowl ended 63-3, the winning coach said: “People need to see what happened tonight, and they need to fix this.” That was from Kirby Smart, who – with Nick Saban’s retirement and Jim Harbaugh’s escape to the NFL – stands atop his profession. The complete list of current FBS head coaches who’ve won the BCS/CFP: Smart, Dabo Swinney, Mack Brown. (The latter’s title was taken Jan. 4, 2006.)
I don’t disagree with Smart’s plaint. Someone needs to fix something, but who’s the someone and what’s the something? The College Football Playoff just ballooned in size. The Big Ten numbers 18 teams. The ACC has 17 football-playing members, at least for the moment. If nobody seems thrilled with what’s happening, why has it been allowed to happen?
Because some entity – a TV network, an NIL sponsor, an institution of higher learning – is paying for it to happen. Smart’s yearly compensation is $13M. ESPN re-upped its rights to air the CFP for $7.8 billion over six years. The NCAA agreed to pay $2.6 billion in back damages to student-athletes from pre-NIL days. It used to be that everybody was making money off college football except the players. Now they are, too.
There’s nothing wrong with making money. As Don Barzini said to his fellow Mob bosses, “After all, we are not Communists.” Full disclosure: Since 1976, yours truly has gotten paid for covering sports, college football among them. Trouble is, there’s nobody – and by that we mean “no governing body” – to care about what’s good for the game.
The NCAA stopped trying long ago. The CFP has grown from a three-game event to a month-long lollapalooza – what begins Dec. 20, 2024, will end in Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Jan. 21, 2025 – and somehow nobody seems concerned about student-athletes missing classes. Greg Sankey isn’t paid to worry about the Big 12, which is why the Big 12 no longer includes Texas and Oklahoma. It’s every league, every school, for itself.
Sometimes change isn’t a terrible thing. How did humanity exist without air conditioning? When last did you step into a phone booth? Maybe college football – which, lest we forget, took the better part of a century before getting around to deciding its champion on the field – will be bigger/better than ever.
It’s possible this is just me being neophobic, but I cannot tell a lie. I don’t know where this sport is going. I have grave concerns it’s nowhere good.
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