ORLANDO, Fla. — Amid the spectacle of the opening weekend of the College Football Playoff — and the nagging feeling that we’re watching a sport we no longer love — here’s the uncomfortable question that no one in power seems eager to answer:
Is college football gradually turning off the fans who built it?
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The other day on our radio show, we asked a simple poll question: “How excited are you for this year’s College Football Playoff?” » The result was not close. The overall winner was: “Mild at Best.”
No, this was in no way a scientific survey. But it was taken in a college football-crazed state, in a city that hosts three bowl games, by listeners who have spent decades programming fall Saturdays at kickoff times. These are not occasional cases. These are the lifers.
And they look tired.
College football has always thrived on passion – irrational, inherited passion. We fell in love with the sport because we were loyal to our hometown or our country’s public schools. Because our moms and dads went there. Because our grandparents wore these colors. Because even when our teams were bad, they were ours. We thought the players loved our schools like we did. We believed coaches were stewards of something bigger than themselves.
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This belief has disappeared.
We are now left with a sport that seems increasingly transactional, detached from its own history and openly hostile to the idea of loyalty. The transfer portal and NIL didn’t just change college football: they renamed it. Players are no longer student-athletes growing into men within a program; they are entrepreneurs who buy their services each year from the highest bidder. And coaches are no longer culture builders; they’re free agents with obscene contracts and super-agents who are already negotiating new deals with new teams mid-season.
Lane Kiffin didn’t even wait for the College Football Playoff selection committee to place his Ole Miss team in the 12-team field before embarking on his next big job. Think about it: The head coaches of three CFP teams will be elsewhere next season, meaning that in the sport’s most important tournament, a quarter of its leaders already had one foot out the door before the playoffs even began.
It’s not continuity. It’s chaos.
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And the collateral damage is everywhere. Bowling games – once the measure of success – are now disposable. This year alone, Notre Dame withdrew because it was snubbed by the CFP committee, while Kansas State and Iowa State withdrew because they lost their coaches. In the old days, bowls meant something. They were a reward, a destination, a final chapter. Now they are an inconvenience.
Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz didn’t mince words when he said earlier this week, “College football is sick.” He warned that the sport is “creaking” – not metaphorically, but structurally. Rules without consequences. Nobody respects the participation agreements. Falsification without sanction. Freedom without guardrails.
UCF coach Scott Frost went even further. He said the quieter part out loud: “It’s broken.” »And for this honesty, he was attacked. Not because he was wrong, but because he threatened those who profit from the disorder. Frost described a world where participation agreements are ceremonial, salary caps are a fiction and booster money determines competitive balance more than coaching or development ever could.
This isn’t college football. It’s the NFL without contracts, unions or rules.
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Minnesota coach PJ Fleck summed it up best: “College football has nothing like what the NFL has in place. … I don’t think the general public really knows what it looks like when you peel back the onion.”
And that’s the point. The fans (and coaches) are finally pulling it out – and they don’t like what they see.
Conferences now stretch from coast to coast, stripping the sport of its regional soul. The rivalries that once defined generations are disappearing in favor of television windows. Which brings us to a legitimate question for UCF fans: with USF no longer on your schedule, who is your big rival? Answer: You don’t have one.
The sense of belonging was important in college football. Geography mattered. Identity mattered. Tradition mattered. Now everything is optimized for TV inventory and gambling markets.
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Make no mistake, college football is still idiot-proof. This will continue. ESPN needs the programming. Sports betting needs content. Saturdays will always be filled with games, spreads and parlays. The machine will not stop.
But what happens when the real fans – the ones who stayed and cheered through the losing seasons, NCAA sanctions and decades of irrelevance – start checking out with emotion? When excitement becomes obligation? When loyalty seems foolish?
We are already seeing the signs. Fans less invested in bowls. Fans less connected to rosters that are renewed every year. Fans who no longer recognize their own conferences. Fans who watch out of habit, without hope.
This is not about remuneration of opposing players. Players deserve to be paid. This is not about nostalgia for unpaid work or closed systems. It’s a question of structure, fairness and meaning. A sport without rules does not mean freedom, it means anarchy. And anarchy is exhausting.
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College football was never meant to be perfect. It was supposed to be personal. It was supposed to mean something beyond the scoreboard. It was meant to connect campuses, communities and generations.
Right now, it looks like a sport in disarray where even the coaches and administrators are just desperate spectators of its unraveling. It’s so bad they’re begging the federal government to get involved. Can you name another multi-billion dollar company that is actively seeking government regulation?
The scariest part isn’t that coaches like Frost and Drinkwitz are speaking out.
It’s that we, long-time fans, begin to quietly nod our heads and wonder why we’re still watching.
Yes, the College Football Playoff is here this weekend and it’s never been more important.
But sadly, sport itself has never seemed so empty.
