As the Indiana Hoosiers walked off the field in a blowout loss to Notre Dame on Friday night, it began dawning on college football fans that there is a brutal truth to the College Football Playoff that has changed the sport forever.
There once was a time where a team's fanbase could feel they had a successful season without winning the national championship.
Do you remember the BCS era where we had teams win the Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Sugar Bowl and feel as if they were on top of the world? Did they finish first in the country when the final AP Poll came out? No. But, that win still meant something.
On the other hand, there were 10-2, 9-3, and 8-3 teams that finished just outside the BCS Bowl picture who still felt like they had big games on their hands as they matched up with a non-conference opponent in a game like the Peach Bowl, Citrus Bowl, Gator Bowl, or the Cotton Bowl.
Now? The bowl games mean even less than they ever have.
Yes, it's true that the four-team College Football Playoff began the demise of bowl games. We began to see bowl opt-outs more and more during that era. However, the 12-team College Football Playoff has essentially killed any life that bowl games had left, and it has changed the sport forever in a way that you never would've thought: We're now in a "championship or bust" era of college football.
Did Indiana football fans walk away from an 11-2 season feeling like they had accomplished anything? Will the other 10 teams in the College Football Playoff who don't win the national championship feel the same way? Most likely.
The truth of the matter is that it's all about the postseason now. Bowl games are nothing more than exhibition games, but now the playoff is amplified even more to the point that every single team that isn't the national championship winner in the CFP will finish off their season with a loss and likely feel as if their season fell short of the goal.
There used to be a time when you could have a successful season and not win the national championship. In hindsight, fans might be able to look back and say that — like NFL fans are able to do after their team is eliminated from the playoffs — but in the here and now, it's all about one goal and anything less than that is going to be a disappointment.