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Now, I'll I'll I'll want to play some sound from Steve Sarkisian because he and his athletic director Chris Del Conte, Texas, like they were banging the drum on the need for expansion is partially driven by the way that we talk about success in college football. So, let's play this sound from Sark. the problem right now in college athletics, everybody's chasing one end goal. And we're we're losing sight of the small victories along the way. And we live in a we live in an era right now of college football is playoff or bust. And I feel for people because there's only 12 teams that get in. And we have a I don't you guys tell me, I think it's close to if not 70 power four schools, not to mention the P5
schools. And so, the disappointment for the majority of these fan bases because they all live with a playoff or bust mentality. And that's the mentality right there with the question you just asked that we're we're minimizing the value of an SEC championship all with the hopes of just winning a national championship. And one team gets one of those. And so, I just think that was one of the beauties of college sport and of college football for a long, long time, you know, when it was two teams. When there was no BCS, there was nothing. It was they just figured out who the champion was. And then we went to two teams, and then we went to four teams. And even at four teams, it was like, okay, we know who those four are. The rest of these teams can have
really good seasons and celebrate their seasons. Um you know, be champions, you know, win a New Year's Six Bowl and still feel great about their season. Um and now we've gotten to 12, and now with the tables have kind of turned. And my concern is I watched a coach get fired five games into a season last year after being in the semifinals a year before. That's concerning to me about the health of our sport. And so, to me, I just think we got to find a way to get out of this notion of it's a national championship or bust for all the schools because it's not a healthy way to live for our fan bases. It's not a healthy way to live for our donors.
Um there's a lot of money in place. There's a lot of people contributing. The TV revenue that's coming in. There's a lot going in this. There's NIL. There's players making money. Gosh, to just to hang one carrot out there that we're all chasing every single year with the with a format that's really not conducive for everybody to have an opportunity to win it. Um that's a scary proposition to me. And so, hopefully, like I said, we can navigate our way through this and we can find a little better remedy for it. That's something you and I talk about all the time, as well. And this idea that, you know, a 10-win season used to be success or a Rose Bowl if you hadn't been there in a long time. And that all went away. And so, the
message that Sark is sending is really about like everyone, right? Fans, media, everyone, the way that we talk and care about the sport, which I think it's going to be hard to go backwards. Um everyone always points to and I remember I did a story in this in The Athletic. ESPN when they the beginning of the playoff, your the year you won it. Yeah. Do you remember all of those commercials and all the framing, who's in? Yep. Who's in? So, you were writing teams off when they lost we wrote off Ohio State, right? Because they lost to Virginia Tech. But it was just all who's in who's
not. And then that grows year over year, and then all of the sudden it's just playoff or bust. And I can understand how that would be really frustrating. Can understand how expanding the playoff addresses that if more people get to be in the playoff. You know, I talked to a couple athletic directors at the bar and they were saying they brought up the point that this was brought up with basketball expansion, too, like the percentage of participation, like from the sport into the postseason. And they said the percentage used to be really high because you used to just be like, who gets to play in a bowl game?
Right. But if that's not important, and the only postseason that matters is this one, then the percentage is really, really small now. Yeah, it's again, we've talked about it. You know how I feel. Like I think one of the biggest tragedies in the current setup is what's happened to the prestige of New Year's Six starting in the four-team and then obviously with those bowl games being a part of the playoff. Like it's, you know, like nobody really talks about or celebrates or cares about those bowls. But when I was a player and when I was a kid watching, like it was a huge deal. Like you get to watch your team in a, you know, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar
Bowl. You mentioned the Rose Bowl. Like you can go through all of them. It was a phenomenal thing for your team to experience that people don't care as much right now. We've talked about rivalries and I don't think that I think there's a difference between like the stakes of a game and the importance of a game. I do think rivalries are going to continue to be important, but like do you also just cope when your team loses? Like do you just take the copium and keep it pushing cuz you're like, oh, I'm going to the playoffs anyway. What is the what isn't isn't what happened to Ryan Day the counter to that?
Yes, but I think if we start to see a thing like that happen more commonly, like people would just start doing the copium thing. But I still think that people will be like, no, they should lose their job or like this is the most important thing and Yeah, I mean, there're going to be some people like that. I think more and more folks are going to be like, well, you know, the thing is the national championship. Like that's the most important thing. It's what Sark is basically getting at is like if you can pull it off, then it is what it is. Now, if you lose to your rival and then you're just in the postseason, don't do anything, like people are going to want you fired. I do think it's an interesting thing there, though.
Um, where Ryan Day, the whole thing was he had to win a national championship at level to offset the fact that he couldn't be fish again I will say this is also the greatest rivalry in sport. So, I do think that the everyone it's not necessarily the same, but every people arguing that people are going to sit out those games. I don't think that part happens. I don't I mean I'm not I first off, you know where I'm at. I don't think it's going to happen. I would just love to see it happen. I just I want to see the world have to react to that. Um but to sum it all up, this it has the sport has never been so focused on the post season as it is right now. And I'm just not sure that's the greatest thing for a sport that was known for a really fun and electric
regular season. I also to Sark's point about how do you grade seasons like finishing top five, finishing top 10 used to be a huge deal. Finishing in the top 25 for a lot of programs was a big deal like in this new world is there a difference between the top 10 finish and the top 25 finish and in just the way we conceptualize it because both of those are post season teams, whereas typically the top 10 finish was a New Year's six team. A lot of times in top 25 you're you're going to a good ball game, but it's not the same. All those things to me stand out and they matter. Or that doesn't really matter because some of that was it carried over into next year. And now the rosters change.
Yeah, doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. I think but this is what I'm saying like I thought these were like really interesting philosophical points that these guys were bringing up at SEC spring meetings.
