Nothing builds anticipation for a new college football season like carping about future playoff restructuring. Here we go again, letting the politics of an exhausting, never-content, always-bracing-for-mayhem sport overshadow the fun on the horizon. The 2025 campaign hasn’t had its first game, and the parents already are arguing about the seating chart at their grandchild’s wedding.

College football refuses to stay in the moment. There is too much money to pursue. There are too many factions to satisfy. There is too much power to protect, even if it results in compromises that threaten the stability and long-term interests of a sport rooted in tradition. The latest ego-driven nonsense involves the Big Ten, which floated the idea of expanding the playoff from 12 participants to a 24- or 28-team format. It’s probably a ploy to motivate other stakeholders to support a 16-team setup that the Big Ten prefers.

Despite the chatter – okay, outrage – the Big Ten stirred, it’s not worth debating the merits of a supa-dupa playoff because the conference’s goal was to be preposterous. Such disingenuous tactics come with the warning that, if the Big Ten isn’t guaranteed a larger plate of food, it just might yank the tablecloth and ruin everybody’s meal.

College football stopped dealing in good faith long ago. Maybe it never did. Determining a true national champion isn’t the objective; forging tenuous alliances to fatten the revenue stream is. Every program is for itself until forced to profit together. At the Football Bowl Subdivision level, it took the sport 145 years just to create a miniature, four-team playoff in 2014. That lasted 10 years, and then it became clear that expanding to 12 would be more lucrative. In 2021, a wave of conference realignment began that resulted in the obliteration of the Pac-12, once the jewel of West Coast football.

All of a sudden, with the SEC and Big Ten swelling to a combined 34 schools, it only made sense to alter the postseason. But amid all the chaos, the conferences agreed to stop eating each other and expand the playoff to 12 teams for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. The temporary solution made the current fight inevitable.

In March 2024, ESPN and the College Football Playoff agreed to a six-year, $7.8 billion contract that begins in 2026 and runs through the 2031 season. The playoff field can grow or remain the same. But the power dynamics behind the format have changed. The current system required Notre Dame and the 10 conference commissioners to reach a consensus. In the new deal, the SEC and Big Ten hold the control, and their only obligation is to discuss matters with Notre Dame and the eight other conferences.

In earlier discussions, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey expressed interest in a “5+11” expanded format: five automatic bids, 11 at-large bids. Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti has been more enthusiastic about a “4-4-2-2-1-3” structure: four automatic bids apiece for the Big Ten and SEC, two each for the ACC and Big 12, one for the highest-ranked conference champion outside of the Power Four leagues and three at-large bids.

One structure is as clean as it gets in college football. The other is tough to remember and, sadly, is most representative of the mess the super conferences have made. With its incomparable depth, the SEC would collect plenty of its proposed 11 at-large bids every season. In comparison, the Big Ten is more top-heavy, which is why four guaranteed seats at the table appeals to Petitti. The Big Ten dreams of a scenario in which its third and fourth automatic bids could be decided via play-in games, a possible engine to drive big-time money from television as well as ticket sales.

The flip side of stacking automatic bids for major conferences is that you’re forcing a structure – for appeasement purposes – that could produce weaker fields in some seasons.

The SEC and Big Ten have until Dec. 1 to agree on a format. With the Big Ten throwing 28-team haymakers with 3½ months left, it will be an obstacle to find middle ground.

“I think there’s this notion that there has to be this magic moment, and something has to happen with expansion, and it has to be forced,” Sankey said last month.

It seems he would be okay remaining in stare mode until the clock expires.

“That’s fine,” Sankey said. “We have a 12-team playoff, five conference champions. That can stay if we can’t agree.”

Petitti has tried to be similarly chill. Even as decision time looms, he has said, “I’m not going to put any deadline on it.” But this new idea sparked reaction and raised the urgency to a level that felt on par with next week’s Texas-Ohio State showdown.

Perhaps that’s a sign to stand down and stop changing a sport that has changed dramatically the past few years.

Playoff expansion is the most popular and laziest answer to drive revenue. It’s happening in every sport. Television and streaming companies always want more sports inventory. But college football can withstand only so much expansion – from the toll on players’ bodies and academic requirements, to the audience’s bandwidth, to the quality of play.

Last season, the first with a 12-team tournament, nine of the 11 playoff games were decided by double figures. Growing the field to 16 could result in nothing more than four more mediocre games. Growing beyond 16 would ensure early-round snoozers. The transfer portal and pay-for-play allowances increased parity in college football, but there’s still a significant gap between the top tier and the rest of the contenders. Watering down the product will just make that reality clearer to viewers.

For the most compelling tournament, eight teams would be the perfect number. Twelve makes it just inclusive enough to pretend to be a national competition with access for all. Right now, anything bigger does nothing more than massage the shoulders of the most powerful conferences.

Let ’em stew for a while. Let us adjust to all of the recent change. You shouldn’t need to buy a new handbook every year to know how college football functions.

There is no perfect playoff format for a sport that doesn’t truly believe it needs a playoff. It’s just a mechanism for money, pride and status. In this case, the status quo doesn’t mean irresolution. For this warring sport, it would feel a lot like peace.

On the eve of the NBA draft, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander paraded through the streets of Oklahoma City, shirtless and with a Canadian flag wrapped around his waist. Joy finally infiltrated his cool and quiet demeanor. He swaggered about, embracing being The Man, leaning into his full superstar identity: champion, deadly scorer, regular season and Finals MVP, the latest player born outside the United States to stake a claim as the best hooper in the world.

Consider the scene a prologue to the NBA story of Cooper Flagg, the 18-year-old with sky-born ability who enters the league as the new great American hope in an era ruled by international stars.

It shouldn’t matter, yet it does. The NBA is still an American league, regardless of whether its alpha star hails from New York City or French Lick, Indiana; Athens, Greece, or Sombor, Serbia. Basketball globalization has helped make the sport more lucrative, epitomized by the news last week that a majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers will be sold at a record-setting $10 billion valuation. Nevertheless, this nation’s roundball ego won’t allow the game to diversify without concern that our players are losing their edge.

It’s never simply amazing that the game has grown across so many borders that Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo have driven the bus for three of the past five champions. The discourse always includes criticism that America doesn’t have sufficient representation among the best of the best.

The depth of U.S. talent remains untouchable, which is why Team USA has won five straight Olympic gold medals. But the hierarchy is changing. It’s most noticeable at the MVP level, where the award has gone to foreign-born players the past seven years. An American hasn’t finished in the top three of MVP voting since Stephen Curry placed third in 2021.

On Wednesday night, when the Dallas Mavericks made the no-brainer decision to draft Flagg No. 1 overall, he stepped into the spotlight wearing a dark blue three-piece suit and a black tie. A goatee in training decorated his face. The hairy effort only added to his boyish charm.

Flagg, who won’t turn 19 until December, has experienced hype for the past four years. He keeps proving worthy of the attention. His reputation rose to a preposterous level last summer after he impressed during scrimmages with Team USA as it prepared for the Paris Olympics. Then he went to Duke, won national player of the year as a freshman and led the Blue Devils to the Final Four.

Now in the NBA, his development will mean much to the perception of American pro ballers. It’s an unfair burden, but there’s hope that he can offset the dearth of 25-and-under American players capable of dominating the league. Anthony Edwards has MVP talent. But the other candidates, including Zion Williamson and Ja Morant, have struggled with injuries and off-court troubles.

In every generation, there are only a handful of stars who can define an era. Because the Williamson generation has yet to step forward, aging stars such as LeBron James, Curry and Kevin Durant have lingered as the standard for too long. As a result, the 35-year-old James Harden is the youngest former American MVP in the league. Jaylen Brown, 28, is the only active American Finals MVP under 30. But despite being a four-time all-star and the first NBA player to sign a $300 million contract, Brown is not a top-shelf star.

Does Flagg have the game and magnetism to be the alpha star? He might, but he’s not the once-every-two-decades prospect that James and Victor Wembanyama were. His skill set is a notch below, but with his drive and competitiveness, Flagg still might rule the league.

During a media session after Dallas selected him, a reporter asked Flagg if he will try to win a championship as a rookie. It’s a feat that a No. 1 pick hasn’t accomplished since Magic Johnson did it 45 years ago. Yet Flagg refused to admit the thought was unrealistic.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course, yeah. My mindset has always been to be a winner. So I’m going to try to win as hard as I can everywhere I go. I’m looking forward to being successful and winning a lot of games, for sure.”

As a public figure, Flagg can be robotic and a little shy. But even in those moments, you notice hints of charisma. On the court, his personality shines. He has an intensity that complements his athleticism. He’s a highlight dunk or blocked shot waiting to happen. His game defies racial stereotypes, which will enhance his marketability.

The question about the kid from Newport, Maine, has never been whether he would be a significant player. The debate centers on how big a star can be. For the sake of basketball discourse in this country, he needs to be more than the safe pick.

After Gilgeous-Alexander won the MVP, ESPN led a chorus of “What’s wrong with American basketball?” Most of the conversation veered into tropes about the soft and spoiled athletes.

“Most of these successful international guys either are influenced heavily by American basketball culture, played high school ball in America, some even went to college here,” Durant wrote on X in May. “This whole convo is trash, basketball is a universal language, some people have different dialect. Some states teach the game different than other states, who says there’s a perfect way to teach the game?’”

The basketball culture has its problems. But some of the criticism lacks depth. It’s irresponsible to scream crisis when 12 of the 15 players named to the 2025 all-NBA teams were Americans. But the three others – Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo – are the best players in the league.

And Luka Doncic probably has a couple of MVP seasons in him.

And Wembanyama is something we’ve never seen.

That’s just five international superstars, but they’re enough to take every spot-on the all-NBA first team.

When the 2024-25 season began, a record-tying 125 players from other countries made the opening night rosters. That’s about a quarter of the league. But there’s so much talent among those players that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is formulating a USA-vs.-World format at the 2026 All-Star Game.

The U.S. could use some of Flagg’s fearlessness. When Edwards was asked last season about being the face of the NBA, he declared, “That’s what they got Wemby for.” If his honesty was refreshing, his resignation was shocking. Edwards wants to hoop without responsibility. But the NBA was built on legends who welcomed the task of carrying the league.

America needs to replenish its talent at the highest tier of NBA stardom. Flagg doesn’t back down from any challenge. An entire nation now hopes his game matches his mentality.