With talks of the CFP field potentially expanding to 24 teams, many wonder if Week 13/14 end-of-regular season rivalry games, like "The Game" between the Ohio State Buckeyes and TTUN, will suffer. Indiana Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti is quite dismissive of those concerns.
Cignetti rhetorically asked and subsequently quipped, "Do you think Ohio State-Michigan, either of those teams are gonna rest their starters? Come on," when asked if both teams would consider resting starters during the sport's, and possibly sports', greatest rivalry game.
To that, I mean, yeah? Why would any team not rest starters down the stretch when they know they might need to win five games to win the national championship? Yes, "The Game" isn't just any other game, but it would never take precedence over a team's playoff hopes. The Buckeyes and Wolverines receive around $100 million each win or lose. Winning the CFP brings a program more than $20 million in extra incentives.
Teams are always going to follow the money, just like the conferences and just like the television networks. Neither the Ohio State University nor TTUN is going to sacrifice a 2024 championship roster's worth of talent, even for a rivalry game.
That sentiment makes one wonder if it'd even be "The Game" if it could potentially be a game that stars don't play because it's not important enough. And that is a sad reality that the College Football world could be facing.
Money, not traditions, is now the sole decider of everything in College Football
Don't let Cignetti gaslight you. "The Game" would suffer from a 24-team playoff, and that is not good for the sport in any way. The product we know and grew up with would change if/when this is decided on. That's just how the world works now.
That's life. Change is inevitable; it oftentimes hurts, but if it has to happen, it must happen. But someone like Cignetti, who wants to take everything away from what we know about the Big Ten totem pole, with help from Mark Cuban and other IU boosters' money, doesn't need to tell us to like it. Cignetti is seemingly grumpy about many things, but complaints about College Football traditions don't need to be met by him with any sort of condescension.
Here we are, though. The head coach of the defending national champions has the gall to tell fans to shut up and like it. You almost have to appreciate how brazen he's being.
No, you don't have to like these changes. ESPN's Billy Connelly doesn't like them, having penned a piece titled "24-team College Football Playoff shows bigger isn't always better." Damn right a 24-team CFP isn't better by default because there's more games, and thus, more ad revenue to be earned.
Money talks, though, and it's screaming at us that there's about to be an uncomfortable change. That goes for the sports world, and seemingly the rest of the world as an unprecedented decade moves on, with the pursuit of profits continuing to supersede anything else in importance in this modern world.
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