Flock Talk: Games Without Frontiers

 

Brett McMurphy wrote an interesting piece this week detailing why the so-called “Power Two” have stalled out on playoff expansion talks, and the details matter because they reveal the quiet part out loud. This isn’t a disagreement about logistics or timing. It’s a disagreement about power, leverage, and whose worldview gets codified into the next version of college football.

Peter Gabriel once warned us about games without frontiers. Games without borders. Without lines. Without the old maps that told you where you stood and what mattered. That’s where college football finds itself now. Conferences have outgrown geography. Seasons are stretched thin. Stakes are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Everyone is playing, but no one agrees on the rules.

The competing visions explain why. The Big Ten’s proposal is aggressive and unmistakably NFL-adjacent: a 24-team playoff, multiple automatic bids for power conferences, and even play-in games layered on top. It’s a structure designed to maximize access, inventory, and television windows above all else. The SEC, by contrast, is pushing for a tighter 16-team field, with automatic bids for five conference champions and the remaining 11 spots filled at large. Fewer teams. Fewer guarantees. Greater emphasis on elite résumés rather than sheer volume.

Strip away the talking points and the message is clear. Each conference is trying to shape a system that best serves its own ecosystem. The Big Ten favors scale and guaranteed inclusion. The SEC prioritizes selectivity and discretion. Neither proposal is being driven primarily by the long-term health of the sport, and neither is particularly aligned with what is best for the athletes who would be asked to absorb the physical and academic toll of an ever-expanding postseason.

That’s where the conversation often misses the most important point. Expansion itself is not the problem. Expansion without rethinking the postseason is. As Dan Lanning has said repeatedly—and as I’ve argued before—if you’re going to add games, those games should be played on campus. Full stop.

College football cannot keep pretending it lives in two eras at once. You cannot move toward an NFL-style model built on television windows, national branding, and revenue maximization while clinging to a bowl system that no longer serves elite teams or the players on them. With the exception of the national championship game, the days of top programs flying across the country to play in half-empty neutral-site bowls should be over. On-campus playoff games reward regular-season performance, reduce travel strain, and create environments that actually feel worthy of the stakes.

This is also why, for once, I find myself closer to the SEC’s number than the Big Ten’s. Sixteen teams is the right ceiling. It expands access without diluting meaning. It preserves urgency in the regular season instead of turning November into a seeding exhibition. And most importantly, it leaves room for conference championships to matter.

Winning your conference should mean something. It should be the goal every program builds toward, not a ceremonial box to check before the real tournament starts. Automatic bids for conference champions reinforce that structure. At-large bids should exist to catch truly elite teams that stumble once, not to guarantee participation based on brand or conference affiliation.

What’s happening right now isn’t about vision. It’s about control. The Big Ten and the SEC are both angling to lock in advantages that will last a decade or more, and the stalemate exists because neither wants to concede leverage to the other. The danger is that in fighting over who wins the room, they lose sight of what makes the sport compelling in the first place.

Expansion done right could be transformative. Done wrong, it becomes just another step toward professionalization without the guardrails that protect players, traditions, or competitive balance. Sixteen teams. On-campus games. Conference titles that still matter.

That isn’t nostalgia. It’s structure. And college football would be wise to remember the difference.