CLEMSON -- You can probably recall an instance of a restaurant that's highly successful, and then that restaurant either moves to a different location or expands to a second and even third location.
For whatever reason, the new iteration isn't as good as the original one. Customers pick up on it, word of mouth spreads and then the new business is out of business.
Maybe the analogy doesn't totally fit when we're comparing it to college football's reinventions and re-reinventions of the postseason.
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And we'd be going too far if we suggested that the enterprise is going to go out of business. Because at last check, business was still pretty damned good.
But the growing angst and disillusionment among fans feels too significant to just ignore.
A couple weeks ago we wrote that the current power brokers in the SEC and Big Ten would be wise to get better at reading a room that doesn't seem to be enamored of a combined eight automatic qualifiers for those conferences starting in 2026.
The eminently respected Bruce Feldman, on a podcast interview with Ryen Russillo, gave a similar read on fan sentiment across the national landscape.
