The 24-Team College Football Playoff Isn’t Ruining Anything — Here’s What Actually Should Bother You
Indiana Hoosiers braved the single digit cold weather to celebrate Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, during the Indiana Football College Football Playoff National Championship celebration and parade at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington. | Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images College football’s offseason has one volume setting lately, and it’s maximum outrage.
The likely expansion to a 24-team playoff has people on social media declaring existential crises, mourning the death of the regular season, and generally behaving as if someone just announced the sport is being cancelled. Most of it is misguided noise — and I say that as someone who has spent years studying where college football came from and how it got to where it is today. Let me be direct: I’m not upset about a 24-team playoff.
Not even a little. The Regular Season Argument Doesn’t Hold Up The loudest talking point right now is that the regular season won’t matter anymore. This is, to put it plainly, nonsense.
One media personality recently posted a photo of the Alabama-Auburn Iron Bowl as an example of a game that would lose its meaning. Think about that for a second. The Iron Bowl has been played since 1893.
Those schools have a rivalry built on more than a century of history, regional identity, and genuine hatred — the good kind — that goes well beyond football. A playoff bracket isn’t touching that. The same goes for Nebraska and Iowa, or Ohio State and Michigan, or any of the other matchups that define the sport for its fans.
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