And don't get me started on pro football or baseball.!
     This is probably a topic best understood by guys who are over 60 years old,  College football NCAA just announced they play to open up the Bowl Championship Series to like a 16 team playoff series.   (money hungry dipwads after TV funds, that's all it is)  I'm not to keen on changes in sports, such as they way they have dummied down winter Olympics to snowboard, snowcross and more 'kids' or X-Games events to get more kids to watch ,and again, more TV money.    I'd want to train my kids to RESPECT and enter the traditional events., not find some to make them happy, so top whining to get your way.  Those events lasted for at least 6 decades since winter games began, so suck up and try the original sports.
     But back to college football.   I have no frickin' idea how many bowl games there are now, or where to see them.   They took ALL the  traditional games away from network TV long ago.
     Once upon a time, there were 4 main bowl games, maybe 6.  Nearly ALL were on New Years day or late evening night game (Orange Bowl).   Sugar, Cotton, and the most honorable, the Rose Bowl. Somewhere back then the Fiesta and Gator bowls got into the action, before they began creating ones named after sponsors.  Like here in Chicago, I know  Comisky Park for baseball, not 'Guaranteed Rate Field'.  WTF!?   So the Pac 8 champ, (usually USC or UCLA) would always play the Big 10 champs ( typically Ohio State Univ or Michigan, maybe Michigan State who had their own 'playoff' near end of season game over Thanksgiving weekend). It was a strong tradition to face off the Big  10 and Pac 8. Now of course, the 8' and 10' are higher double digits and might include a team who is thousands of miles away.
    The Big 8 was Oklahoma, Nebraska ,Oklahoma State as typical champs playing someone from the SEC or down south in I think the Orange Bowl.   Cotton Bowl was south, like Alabama or LSU and such,  Sugar Bowl I think was in Texas and I don't recall who played in it.   Add independent Notre Dame who was always had a nation wide following thus worthy of some bowl any time, anywhere.  Fiesta bowl showed up, and Gator Bowl I'd guess would have Florida, or FSU, or anybody else down south or SEC again.    Peach Bowl?  OK, maybe that was part of the first 8 or so bowls, I don't recall. I based my New Years Day on 4 or 5 games.  Rose, Cotton, Orange, Sugar, and something else.   Enough games.
     Sports writers put in their 2 cents to declare who was in top 20 and who among undefeated teams who won a bowl game was thus given the title of 'national champ'.   Some happy , some sad. 
   The BCS games have not solved the argument of who should be IN the final games or who deserves to be called the champs.   It's a fiasco and spreading this out to 16 teams wont' solve it.
    I remember when Boise State began having this string of incredible seasons, often undefeated, yet they did not get bowl bids for such a long time. Why?  Their fan base, located in nowhere Idaho, was not enough to earn TV coverage and ratings and yes, MONEY.     But finally they got their chances in the last decades.
     New Years Day was meant to be laying around your home flipping channels between at least 2 games going on at the same time.  Rose Bowl was always on at 4PM here in Midwest.  Orange Bowl at 7PM   Sugar and Cotton usually were near same start time.  Peach, Fiesta, Gator, I think they all played earlier in the week after Christmas.  But the big money of TV just kept making offers and helping to create more bowl games, of which most began by second week of December to get them all played before the REAL bowl games at end of month.
   Today, nearly every bowl game still in function is off the air from network TV.  You gotta have a sports channel, a paid service, ESPN, etc. to find any games.  And back to baseball?   The world series playoffs just disappeared from TV or even the sports news as the nation seems bent on destroying the national pastime with disinterest. I don't even know if the Series 7 games were on a network this year. Didn't bother to watch or look.
     Last time I got a newspaper(about 10+ years ago), that was the last time I saw the list of college bowl games for the holiday season, what day, time and who was playing.    Today, I have no clue how many nonsense made-up-for-just-profit 'bowl' games there are. And we are supposed to want a 16 team playoff?     These college students (no, I forgot, they are now going to be paid athletes. and get a free education, of which few graduate , and most go for 'communications' degree so they can be a sports commentator after their supposed 'pro' career ahead.)   so these 'students' will be playing football longer than the NFL does , with a championship game probably scheduled for the week the NFL takes off before Superbowl. Or maybe just before the NCAA 'march madness' begins.   Who knows.
         So who else is fed up with the way they've chosen to change the college game, again.?   Am I just too old and cranky, or has it just ballooned out of control?    I truly miss the traditional foes matched up , because they were conference champs.  Cant' do that when the 'conferences' have gone up to 16 teams, then split to 'east-west' of same name conference, and in need of a conference playoff and then THE winner earns an automatic spot in some way to the BCS.  And it all changes if some undefeated unheard of team with a Heisman quality player comes along.   They get to bounce out somebody who thought they earned a spot to include the unknown with the star
.  TV and money rules the pros. OK.  But it should not affect the college game, which once upon a time, was a game for non professionals.     Yes, my rant is also about Olympics, and most main pro sports too, not just college football.   Does anybody younger than 55 have any respect or see value in traditions of sports rivalries, fair play, no payoffs to students, and amateurs only in college AND Olympics?

I'm jest hopin' I've got a little eligibility left so I kin cash in on the endorsements I missed out on back in the early 70's  .  .  .  surely some team would jest luv ta have a geriatric safety out there layin' the wood to some unsuspecting WR, think of the coverage we'd git on ESPN  .  .  . 

SOS

As far as I am concerned, the NFL and NBA have completely degraded and corrupted the very idea of collegiate sports, and with the craven complicity of the NCAA. The last straw for me was the transfer portal. Very sad, but in the late capitalist era, here we are.

I agree!  Too many bowl games and 16 teams in the playoff is ridiculous.  Talk like this happens every time one of the "darlings" (like Alabama) don't qualify.  Suddenly, four teams is not enough anymore.  All this will do is change who cries. Right now, teams that finish 5th through 8th are crying.  If you change it to 16 teams, that just means teams 17-20 will start up.

Mark:  OK,,I won't get started ranting on baseball.   
John Tozz':   My mistake, it's "only" 12 teams planned for new playoff system. Still sucks.
Focuspuller:   I so hate the NBA....for decades it's main claim to fame is rape, no charges, and players repeated fathering children across the country who they just pay off, plus so many players of color who only seek out blonde white women for 'trophy wives'.  The women are just as guilty for that.
Sospix:   I too was hoping to suddenly go 'pro' one day, even as late as my early 50's' when I was still kicking 40+yd. field goals and a few teams were coming up short with injured kickers mid season.   LOL,,,,fat chance on that! My first hit and I'd be busted up for good.

I don't ever see a consensus happening.  There are some who say that a tournament should only include conference champions, since, if you didn't win your conference, you shouldn't be a national champion.  While to make that makes sense, the reality is that there will always be people who cry that the team that loses a major conference championship are a far better team than the one who wins a very small minor conference.  Those two realities will forever contradict each other and people will never agree. 

Look at the current rankings. There are two teams in the top 12 that have three losses each. Should you even be considered for the tournament if you're a three loss team? I have no idea, but it's an argument many are making.

You could become like NCAA Basketball and do a 64 team playoff, which would be beyond ridiculous.  But then, even that number wasn't good enough as we now have play-in games to get to the tournament! 

There is no answer that will please everyone.  Never will be.

John,,if they chose to do an NCAA style playoff' of 64 teams, the games would have to be only 2 quarters long to be able to play twice a week and not last over a month to get to the finish.  Plus just delete those teams from bowl games and go back to inviting a few 'didn't make it's go off to a few bowls.  Just like the NIT tournament in basketball  which used to be a big thing, now is the 'losers bracket' of tourneys.