In Reply to: The CFP killed the bowls, and we're worse off for it... posted by BabyBear on December 12, 2025 at 10:40:06
in the New Year's Day Bowl games. Those bowl games were the culmination for those conference teams. Things changed when there was a irrational desire to determine a national champion. There were all sorts of competing polls that wanted to proclaim a national champion and then that became the end all of the college football season. From that, the BCS evolved and then the CFP to determine a definitive football champion on the field rather than leaving up to the polls, which couldn't agree in many instances. Then ESPN saw an opportunity to monetize it and then this led to other crass money grab schemes, like NIL and the rise of super-conferences.
I preferred the old days, where there were four New Years Bowl winners from the major conferences and we all could enjoy a nice debate which team was best. Lots of great discussion there. Nowadays, the playoffs is essentially the same 5 or 6 SEC teams, 4 or 5 Big Ten teams and maybe 1 or 2 Big 1/2 ACC teams...playing each other for the second or third time this year. That's not as interesting to me. Just my opinion.