Just saw the Big Ten coaches lobbying for a 24-team playoff at their spring meetings and I had to sit down. Back in the 1998 season when we won the Sun Bowl and finished 7-5, you had to earn your way into a New Year's bowl by beatng somebody worth a darn. Now they want to let half the country in and call it a championship. Coach Patterson used to say the only thing that mattered was the scoreboard at the end of the fourth quarter. Now it is about participation trophies for the whole Power Four. The 2010 Rose Bowl meant something because we earned it the hard way. This 24-team nonsense just waters down everything we used to fight for.