College football has been sterilized over the last decade, leading to Friday’s strange re-alignment of Cal and Stanford.
The “caretakers” of college football made the most serious mistake, and it killed their sport.No, what made college football great was the sheer chaos of it all. It was balkanized and provincial — a game filled with shady characters, open secrets, and preposterous contradictions.
The top schools all compete for the same top players. The conferences fight for the same TV dollars. There was a time when both Bay Area schools were something more than industry afterthoughts. Cal was considered a legitimate preseason national title contender in the mid-aughts. For nine straight years between 2011 and 2019, Stanford started the season ranked in the AP Top-25, three times as a top-10 team.
Now, the sport is left without mystery and the clandestine nature that made college football so flawed — and so great.The flaws were the discerning feature of college football. It’s what made a lesser game more attractive than the NFL to so many for so long — including myself.Pair that with real rivalries, and you have the lifeblood of a sport that has been self-sufficient for decades.The national champion used to be determined by a poll — and there was more than one poll.
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