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One negative of the College Football Playoff field expanding to 12 teams this season — with even more bracket bloat sure to come — is the accelerating decline of interest and impact stirred by bowl games not included in the growing playoff picture.
Instead of ignoring or attempting to argue with this reality, the creators of these non-CFP bowl pairings need to react accordingly. They need to up their games.
Just as the rise of name, image and likeness cash making its way to college players should, hopefully, if the contracts are written well, work to slow the stream of players opting out of non-playoff bowl games, the bowl games themselves can modernize to better move the needle.