Unincumbered by the thought process, enthusiasts of the new college football playoffs already are contending that a four-team tournament is too limited. There is clamoring to expand to eight teams. Or 16. Fans want it, the narrative goes; “fairness” demands it (poor TCU got left out this year). Excitement and the boffo TV ratings for the New Year’s Day’s inaugural semifinal round foretell it.

This, remember, is an activity of the NCAA, which describes itself as a non-profit organization, in spite of the billions of dollars it is raking in, and is performed by what the NCAA insists are “student-athletes,” though a more accurate label would be—at best—athlete-students.

The sad fact is that nobody—including the university presidents who long argued that expanding the postseason was an infringement upon their educational mission—appears willing or able to stand up to the steamrolling power of ESPN’s money and visibility.

Here’s an unsettling thought: Might the playoff system, now stretching one game beyond the traditional bowl season, have been realized so quickly if not for the revolting Jerry Sandusky child molestation revelations at Penn State in 2011?

At the time, Penn State’s president, Graham Spanier, was chairman of the college president’s Oversight Committee for what was then called the BCS—Bowl Championship Series—that designated two top teams for a “championship” bowl. Spanier was on record declaring that a football playoff in college’s top division was “just not going to happen. The presidents of our universities are not going to go for it. We’re the ones who have the say.”

In a June 2010 interview with BlueWhite Illustrated, a Web site for Penn State sports, Spanier said, “Sports reporters and fans can talk about it all they want…. As if talking about it and debating it makes it more likely to change. Some people say, ‘Just go to four teams.’ Then four will go to eight and eight will go to 16. We’ll end up with an NFL-style playoff. Everyone knows where it will head if we go beyond two teams. I just don’t want to go in that direction.”

That oversight committee was formed in 2003 (Spanier was one of the founding members) and immediately began discussing the possibility of a major-college football playoff. In 2004, it hired UCLA administrator John Sandbrook to study the matter—and Sandbrook, in doing so again for the watchdog Knight Commission in 2007, became convinced that change would overtake the bowl system at some point.

That point was reached shortly after Spanier was dismissed by Penn State in November 2011 following public disclosure that Sandusky, assistant to Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, was a serial abuser of young boys. Both Spanier and Paterno were fired for failing to follow up on tips of Sandusky’s criminal behavior.

And Spanier barely was out of the BCS Oversight Committee scene when that group, in June 2012, voted unanimously to recommend a four-team playoff to begin in 2014-15.

So now, it is with cheerful indifference to the pitfalls of a thoroughly professional playoff, similar to ignoring the perils of coaches such as Paterno having virtually uncontested power over institutional and legal matters involving their teams, that a further expansion of the top-tier college season is inevitable.

Money talks. Loudly. Among Spanier’s comments, when he still was in his oversight position, was that he and fellow university presidents would not be swayed by the “potential” riches inherent in a playoff system. But the $7.3 billion that ESPN offered for 12 years of TV rights was enough to twist those presidents’ arms.

And the reality is that the big bucks hardly are earmarked for academic needs and professors’ salaries. In a discussion I had with Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist a couple of years ago regarding big-time college sports, Zimbalist reminded that “the NCAA, in effect, is a trade association for coaches and athletic directors. I don’t think anybody in his right mind would say this does anything to fulfill the educational purpose.”

Alabama’s Nick Saban, the nation’s highest paid college coach ($7 million a year), reasoned before his team lost its playoff semifinal to Ohio State that, “If you create value for the university, and you look at it for that standpoint, then I think there’s a relative amount that someone’s worth is based on.” Saban, like many football coaches at top public universities, earns more than any other state employee, including the governor and university president.

So here we go. First, Monday night’s hyped-up Oregon-Ohio State lollapalooza. Soon, an eight-team playoff. Then, probably, 12 teams, with a bye week for the top four built in. Then 16 teams? The evolution of The National (College) Football League—professional sports at its finest.

Don’t give higher education a thought; this is what fans and ESPN want.