The most groundbreaking news to come out of college football in the past decade has been about Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) policies. In 2021, the NCAA made a historic ruling, allowing college athletes to be compensated monetarily for use of their image. This opened the door to commercial appearances, merchandise sales and other opportunities for student-athletes to begin profiting off of their careers before going pro. In turn, this has led to significant changes in recruiting, as athletes are now much more incentivized to commit to bigger schools, given the chance to have a larger audience and make more money.
Knowing that this is now a factor, college coaches have resorted to wooing recruits with flashy cars and beachfront properties during visits in an attempt to bring in new talent. This, of course, has begun to create larger imbalances within the college recruiting process, as athletes are now often found taking smaller roles at larger schools simply due to the NIL opportunities. College sports have previously faced parity issues unseen by professional leagues, but this has taken it to a new level.
However, NIL is not the only place with perceived imbalances between programs. Unlike professional sports, the NCAA is filled with over 100 teams, and each team plays games based on its specific conference and other factors determined by the team itself. Due to the nature of players being able to choose their team, certain conferences tend to contain much more talent than others.
Since each team plays a unique schedule consisting in large part of teams within their own conference, it is nearly impossible to determine who the strongest teams are every year simply by looking at wins and losses. Instead, playoff spots are determined by a committee of voters, who come together to assess every team and decide who should make the playoffs and who should not. This angers many fans, who find that a voting system will never be able to perfectly decide who the deserving teams are each year, resulting in chaos and controversy. Junior Vidyuth Pasumarthi discussed what he believes to be a significant flaw in the College Football Playoff (CFP) system.
“It’s very difficult to have a lot of trust in the voting system,” Pasumarthi said. “How can you decide between a team that won more games and played in an easier conference and one who won less against harder teams? It’s impossible to tell.”
Pasumarthi’s concerns are echoed throughout the sport, as this issue is one that affects college football in particular. College basketball, in contrast, does not have this problem, as the playoff bracket consists of 68 teams, making it nearly impossible for any team to miss the playoffs and argue they were a real contender. The CFP has plans to potentially expand to a field of 16 or more teams in upcoming seasons, having moved to a 12-team playoff in 2024-25 after a decade of four teams.
Ultimately, through lucrative NIL deals tainting the recruiting process and a voting committee having substantial control over the playoff field every year, college football fans are becoming increasingly unfamiliar with the game and how it will look in the coming years.
