As the NCAA football season fast approaches, I found myself a little surprised as I looked over various conference outlooks. Why the surprise? Every year, I find my previously extensive knowledge of college football”s conference makeups shaken more and more.

It concerns me to no end to see new and uninteresting games replacing old rivalries year after year. Now Conference USA powerhouse Louisville has come along to help legitimize the woeful Big East Conference.

While I concede this is old news, I still haven’t gotten over the way the ACC gutted the Big East of the majority of its talent, all in the name of becoming a ‘Super Conference’ like the Big 12 or SEC. I know the ACC brass was as tired as I was of seeing Florida State win the conference every year, but their plundering of the Big East for Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College was reprehensible. Furthermore, it has started what has become a domino effect in the ranks of college football that has threatened to trample over so much of what made it so great to begin with.

After the deal went down, there was much buzz to do about nothing regarding Notre Dame joining the Big East. Or would they go to the Big Ten? If everyone else is making themselves into super conferences, certainly the Big Ten would have to follow suit. Perhaps they could swipe Missouri or Iowa State from the Big 12. So much for the telephone.

In turn, there was talk that the Big 12 would recoup the loss of one of those schools by taking Colorado State from the Mountain West.

Louisville left C-USA high and dry, taking Cincinnati with them. I don’t know about anyone else, but I sure can’t wait to see my first UConn versus Cincinnati game, wow talk about a heated rivalry! This season”s matchup featuring Boston College at Clemson should be similarly thrilling, we all know how much heat exists between Boston fans and South Carolinians. Meanwhile, in order to maintain what credibility they had achieved, C-USA swiped relative powerhouse Marshall from the MAC. I am sure there were some heavy hearts throughout Ohio and Michigan to hear that one of the MAC”s best would be packing up and leaving. The list seems to be ever-changing to the point that I honestly can’t remember who played in C-USA three years ago, and that is too bad for the fans of those conferences.

My grandfather is a University of Miami alumni, and I will never forget what he had to say about the ‘U’s’ jump to the ACC.

“If Miami isn’t in the Big East, I don’t care to watch them.” And to my knowledge, he hasn’t. He did, however, write to the school’s brass and let them know how he felt.

The saddest part about all this leads back to the saddest thing about college sports — especially football — which is simply this: It is all about money.

College football has proven time and time again that it isn’t about the fans, it’s not particularly about the schools, nor is it about the athletes or the conferences. It is about money. And every single time I hear about a new “insert your .com here” bowl, the feeling deepens in my heart. Call me old fashioned, but I just don’t feel inclined to call the Orange Bowl the “FedEx Orange Bowl,” or call the Cotton Bowl the “SBC Cotton Bowl.” As far as I am concerned, any tradition or value bowl games may have had fell by the wayside when the Rose Bowl officially became “The Rose Bowl Presented by Citi.”

Virtually every sports writer in this country has called for an NCAA playoff. Most fans, I believe, tend to agree with that notion. But because the bowl games produce such huge revenues, the powers that be can’t, or won’t, turn their backs on them, no matter how obsolete or inefficient they may be for determining the nation’s finest team. While it has been said 1,000 times before, it bears repeating: NCAA sports isn’t about finding the best team, it’s are about making the most money, and it’s a shame that is the reality we live in.

— Nathan Chiaravalloti is a junior in journalism and mass communications from Davenport