NIL, Conference Chaos, and Playoff Expansion: College Football 2025 with CFB Expert James Brookland

College Football Landscape 2025

As the world eagerly awaits the release of NCAA 25, we’re hard at work ensuring you stay informed like a Tennessee recruit receiving a McDonald's bag full of cash. The landscape of college football is undergoing seismic changes. Players are making bread (legally), conferences are breaking up and retiring Darren Waller style, and the playoffs are tripling in size like Eddie Lacy’s gut in the off-season. Don’t worry, we'll break it all down for you.

NIL: The New Game-Changer

NIL is running rampant, “ruining amateur athletics” as many traditionalists claim. Players are now making money, and it’s fascinating to think about how they’re spending it on and off campus. Nick Saban’s retirement came on the heels of NIL being rolled out. Although he didn’t blame NIL entirely, he admitted it played a role in his decision. For context, Saban made $11 million in his final year and could have easily put together a collective to pay players enough to lure Tom Brady out of retirement. Yet, NIL is changing more than just campus parties; it’s altering recruitment, with top transfer players costing schools millions. Some coaches, like Saban, say they can’t handle it. Remember, the lowest-paid coach in NCAA football, Terry Bowden from UL Monroe, makes a cool $435k with a 10-21 record, while Beaver Stadium in Happy Valley is undergoing $700 million in renovations. But how dare a player expect to earn a few bucks for taking blows and slinging the rock?

Conference Realignment: A New Era

Conference realignment is in full swing, and while I’m not a traditionalist, I am a realist. Is this better for college football fans? Yes. Will this screw over college teams like women's volleyball? Absolutely. The PAC-12 has blown up like a Taco Bell shitter at a truck stop. Washington, UCLA, and USC joined the Big Ten. Cal and Stanford jumped ship to the ACC. Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and the school that is only relevant because of cowboy hat Coach Prime are heading to the Big 12. Climate change activists are up in arms, and maybe for once, they might have point. I still say fuck them but hey, having an open mind is necessary for dealing with retards. To their point, the amount of travel this realignment creates is wild. These are student-athletes (I laughed typing that). How are these “student-athletes” supposed to look like they’re attending classes when Stanford’s women's volleyball team is playing Pitt on a Tuesday and NC State on a Friday? They’ll spend less time in class than Johnny Manziel did in the Cleveland film room with probably the same amount of the colombian cocaine in their system.

Expanded Playoffs: The Ultimate Showdown

Now, the playoffs—if this doesn’t excite you like tits do Carson Beck (see below), then move to Russia. We’re going to have college playoff football galore, and I’m all for it. The top 4 teams will get a bye. Then 5 will duke it out with 12, 6 vs 11, 7 vs 10, and 8 vs 9. To put this in perspective, in 2023, we would have seen Liberty against FSU, Ole Miss vs Georgia, Penn State vs Ohio State, and Missouri against Oregon. No reseeding after these games means the 1 seed will play the winner of 8-9. This change will bring upsets and Cinderella stories like March Madness, while also taking some heat off the Playoff Committee. So kick up your feet, relax, and get ready for the most anticipated college football season in decades.

Get ready for a wild ride as we navigate this new era of college football, filled with big money, broken traditions, and an exciting playoff expansion. Stay Tuned for more College Football insights, from yours truly. It will only get darker and wilder from here, prepare yourselves for some non-left jokes and just a good time overall while we watch these 20 year olds entertain us. No Diddy. Cheers to the chaos and the thrill of the game!