I can see it now, eight 15-team conferences; perfect for the tournaments. You have the 6 current BCS conferences, a 7th mostly western conference, and an 8th sub-par, mostly eastern conference.

On the other hand, I do like the function the Sun Belt serves in the current model; as a intermediary conference for I-AA quality teams in the I-A.

Maybe with a few more Division I-AA promotions (Montana, ND State, Youngstown, Western Kentucky, App St, Massachusetts, Princeton) a 9th intermediary division can return.

Regardless, some BCS Conferences may try it. Houston, Tulsa, and TCU to the Big 12(15)?

The 2-division format is handy for conference championships (in the traditional 90’s and 00’s sense) but with 4 teams advancing to a conference mini-tournament 3 division winners and a wild card will work just fine.

I say just promote San Jose St or New Mexico (or both and demote UTEP) to get your 15-teams. You can then drop another team like Middle Tennessee back to the Sun Belt conference to both even the C-USA and MAC out and also to give the Sun Belt an 8-game round-robin schedule.

Also, watch out for Western Kentucky. With App St this makes 121 teams. I have not found your outline for the 24(25)-team consolation tournament but I am sure it can still work with an extra team.

A playoff involving the bowls is a financial train wreck waiting to happen, which is why administrators and presidents will never allow it. Football is the cog in the money machine and many teams would go bankrupt if this type of system was ever utilized. It is a super idea, but financially speaking, with what is at stake (the entire collegiate athletic platform), it will never get a green light for this risk of failure is too great.

One might even keep bowl traditions alive by keeping the same first round games from year to year–so the PAC-10 plays the Big Ten in the first round every year, and when it has the first round game it goes to the Rose Bowl.

Simple, elegant, not a big change.

I developed many types of playoff proposals, but have quickly concluded that college football will never adopt the traditional playoff paradigm. The proposal I have created essentially keeps the system intact. The schools throughout the country are on different scholastic calenders and you could never convince the presidents to conduct a playoff in the middle of dead week and finals week. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN, and we are beating a dead horse by promoting any type of playoff to extend the regular season, even if it involves the bowl games.

The playoff proposal I have created supports a 12 game season, the bowl platform and the importance of the regular season. The only change to make is ridding ourselves of the ridiculous match-ups in September (by starting with the conference games first) and saving room in the regular season for OOC (Out of Conference) match-ups to occur in a regionalized bracketed format, which would determine the bowl games.

Simply, it would create a chronological sequence of games where all 120 teams would be involved in one of four brackets, guaranteed four games, which would determine on the field - without controversy - who the best of the best is without destroying the current platform of college football.