So what is Who Killed College Football?

A podcast that's part therapy, part history, and part dark comedy

Steven Godfrey and I have been talking and thinking about college football together for nearly a decade, and we’ve each been writing or podcasting about it separately for even longer than that. We’ve seen almost everything about the sport change during that time – wave after wave of conference realignment, amateurism shifting from the reason for the NCAA’s being to a bargaining chip about to be negotiated away in federal court, and a 12-team playoff for a sport that, for decades, chafed at the idea of arranging number one to play number two.

We’ve also both noticed increased fan exhaustion with what college football has become, or is becoming. The exact complaint changes from person to person, but there’s a very strong sentiment that we’re all watching college football evolve into something different, and maybe not in a good way. Even some fans of the teams winning the economic war being waged in the sport feel like college football as they knew it is dying, or already dead.

Who Killed College Football?, a six-episode podcast, is our attempt to process all that change and the feelings that come with it. It’s a way for us (and hopefully you) to better understand the forces that led college football here, and maybe get a sense of where they’ll take the sport next. We want to avoid the easy answers and take stock of the layered and complicated power structure of the college football ecosystem. And we want to remind you that so much of what we’re seeing today echoes the infighting, backstabbing and absurdity that have defined the sport for decades.

We hope you’re excited to start this mystery with us.