The disparity that I was referring to is between the elite teams and the next teir down. To a certain degree, it has always existed as you alluded to, but we are seeing it concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The number of teams that can win a national title in a given year are 4-5 teams. In the past, that number has typically flucuated in the 6-11 team range, especially in the BCS era where one slip up could result in one of those teams falling out of title contention allowing others to step into the void.
The bowl season has been a joke for quite some time. No way in heck I am defending that in anyway.
The landscape of college football changing is more related to how recruiting occurs (blatantly paying vs. doing it through certain avenues), the shuffling of teams into different conferences, and the percieved lack of importance for regular season games due to the expanded playoff. Ohio State has never been ranked lower than 12 at the end of the regular season. Teams like that (Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, Southern Cal if they get their stuff together, even Notre Dame) can shrug their shoulders at their first loss in the regular season. Would Auburn's kick six mean as much if National Title implications weren't on the line?
I am excited at the hype of an expanded playoff but we de facto have that with the importance of regular season games as the format currently stands