College football isn’t as fun as it used to be

College football is a sport built off of honor and tradition, but greedy coaches, administration and executives are killing the sport as we know it.

Remember the great Big 12 rivalries? Nebraska vs. Oklahoma? Kansas vs. Missouri? Rivalries that used to make national television are now relegated to 11 a.m. kickoffs on the SEC Network.

Now why are these rivalries ending? Not competitive enough? Can’t fit into the schedule? Wrong. It is caused by greedy colleges moving to different conferences purely for better TV deals.

Next season, Oklahoma and Texas are moving to the SEC. Colorado, Central Florida, BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State are all to the Big 12. That’s just how much it’s affecting the schools in our region. Schools like Washington, Cal, and UCLA are all joining the Big 10.

Conferences used to be about geography, playing in your region. There’s no more consistency in regions. Why should a school like Arizona be traveling halfway across the country? The only conference that keeps any consistency in location is the ACC.

At this rate, NCAA FBS college football will be a two-conference NFL farm just getting talent ready for. College athletics, especially football, are no longer opportunities for students to play sports at a high level, but to make money for colleges.

Don’t even get me started on this year’s ads. This year feels like a three hour ad show with football in between.

“Commercial break, one pass, one punt, commercial break. 14 seconds of football elapsed,” – @jrast_III on X (formerly Twitter). If that doesn’t explain the state of college football to a T, I have no idea what does.

I don’t want to have to watch some brain rotting Fortune 500 company try and sell their newest product, I want to watch barely academically eligible young men throw balls and tackle each other, and ads force me to watch less of it. It’s so bad that ads are played during plays, simply because of how many ads there are.

Can college football be saved? That’s only a question that time will answer.

Daeton Winebrenner is a Salina freshman studying media communication and production.

Views: 91