Absolutely correct. It started in the '80's when Georgia and Oklahoma sued the NCAA over TV rights/schedules and has snowballed from there. For the want of another TV dollar, the things that made CFB special have been ****canned. Used to be a regional sport, where except for a game or two a year, a fan of any team could drive to his team's away games. Now we have West coast teams in the ACC which means a big trip to see those games in person AND no water cooler rivalries with fans of those schools. I thought it jumped the shark when A&M left their conference and all of their rivalries (Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Baylor, TCU, Houston, Rice, SMU, etc) to join the SEC... All for another buck...screw tradition (which is supposedly THE thing at A&M).
The playoffs are another money grab. Now a college kid may have 12 regular season games (was 10 and maybe a bowl until sometime in the '70's), a conference championship, plus up to 3 playoff games.. total of up to 16, maybe 17 if they have one of the unicorn preseason games. And these are supposed to be students who play ball, not pro players who might even go to class... All for the sake of the almighty dollar. Beyond that, I actually liked the pre-playoff system because it created a water cooler talking point for the off-season... "My team was #1." "No, mine was..." The occasional split decision or just the end of season (and offseason) controversy around that was lotsa fun. Now, we have a playoff. Someone wins, and we have nothing good to talk about for 8 months.