It's been a naturaL evolution and its not going back. When administrators saw they could make big TV money with better teams (and that would boost their salaries),and the fans started demanding that their team be a national champion and conference titles and wins against rivals became secondary, then money entered the picture, cheating entered the picture, transient incredibly overpaid coaches entered the picture, huge fancy stadiums entered the picture, gambling entered the picture, and now easy player transfers and letting fans pay players to play for their teams (the NCAA is toothless in trying to stop this) -- it's easy to trace how it happened.
Once again big money has changed the spirit of collegiate athletics. Now it will be a question of millionaires and billionaires fighting among themselves with their wealth so that on their islands in the Caribeean (or where ever) they can brag about how well their Huskers or Buckeyes or Trojans or whoever are doing.
Modern fans may say bring it on - how many points are we giving, give me another whiskey - but I'm not among them. In this case, it truly was more fun before.