There was a time in college football when a 10-win season that ended with a bowl victory felt like a great year. It was a chance to celebrate the program, send off the seniors with a win, and look ahead to next season with real optimism. But those days feel like a long time ago—and they are. Today’s game has evolved far beyond that, and not necessarily for the better. Sure, the playoff era has brought positives—ratings are through the roof and the sport is as popular as ever—but the championship-or-bust mentality that now permeates college football has fundamentally changed how fans define success.

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Before the 4-team College Football Playoff was instituted in 2014, the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS, used a computer ranking system to determine the top two teams in the country. For the most part, the BCS did a solid job, and the results weren’t overly controversial. But for most fanbases, cracking the top two felt like a statistical long shot. As a result, programs didn’t enter each season expecting to be in that position year after year. Once the playoff expanded from four to 12, that mindset shifted—and it changed almost overnight.

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Now, Power-5 conference teams expect to compete for a playoff spot, and if they aren’t, they’re making swift changes to get there. Athletic departments are firing coaches and paying tens of millions in buyouts, while programs turn to the transfer portal for veteran quick fixes instead of developing young players. The playoff has opened the door for programs that previously had no chance of playing for a championship, and fanbases are no longer satisfied with a good season and a bowl appearance—they want a championship opportunity, and they want it now.

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You can argue that the panic from programs and fanbases is a direct result of the added opportunity, but nonetheless, the chaos is stripping something sacred from the sport—program building. Coaches are no longer afforded the time to build a sustainable program. They are forced to re-recruit their roster year after year just to keep it intact, while navigating constant financial pressure. It’s quite likely that legendary coaches like Bill Snyder, Mike Gundy, Frank Beamer, and Mark Richt wouldn’t have lasted long enough in today’s game to cement their legacies. They built strong, philosophical programs and won hundreds of games, but fell short of a national championship—and that alone is proving to be more than enough to get coaches fired in the playoff era.

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College football used to be about substance, patience, and institutions. Success was measured by the long-term development and identity of a program—now it’s driven almost entirely by results. The sport has changed dramatically over the last decade and will continue to do so as rumors of further playoff expansion loom. Postseason non-playoff bowl games have fallen victim to player opt-outs and growing irrelevance. Even historically meaningful bowl games have become little more than a footnote. It’s hard to place all the blame on fans for that shift—if star players don’t care, why should they?