I have made it no secret...I detested the BCS, and I detest the current "Playoff" system even more. It is a system of bias, an invitational, and not a true playoff, and is run by Power 5 conference influence brokers who all have personalized agendas. It has closed the door on the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt conference, and has even closed the door to several schools in the conferences that this system favors.
I have also not been silent about pointing out that a full 24 team playoff works in every single level of college football, without issues, for a very long time. Don't let anyone tell you that this format cheapens the regular season, as it does far from that. It opens the regular season to more interesting and challenging games, because teams are simply not afraid to make mistakes with early season losses, and the conference games are akin to an in-season selection system.
Do not fall for the argument that teams with 2 or 3 losses should not have the same access to the playoffs as, say, North Dakota State should. NDSU had crushed that argument by running the table and winning national titles several times this decade. Here is the strange counter argument to people saying that Elon should not have the same access as NDSU does, or that Washington should not have the same access as Alabama does...NDSU still has found ways to scoop up title after title, much like Alabama has, in a larger, more diverse pool. The argument that a 3rd place conference team should not have the same access is garbage, and every other division in college football shows that to us in big, bright, neon lights. Check the last 20 national champs from FCS (1-AA), D2, D3, and NAIA playoffs, and you will see champions lined up that won regular season conference titles, and were top 5 teams for chunks of their seasons. It is simply the truth. See for yourself at the links below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_Football_Championship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_II_Football_Championship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_III_Football_Championship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAIA_Football_National_Championship
Bowls and TV money involving bowls are the issue here. It is always about money at the end of the day. ESPN likely does not want to part with their bowl game empire/fiefdom. Here is why they should...ratings are terrible, and attendance at most bowls are worse. It is a regular thing to see low ratings for second and third tier bowls, and even more regular to watch bowls where stadiums are mostly empty. It is simply unwatchable, and players are catching on.
For 2018, nine players are already noted to be skipping their team's bowl game to prepare for the NFL draft instead, and the number is growing daily. The message is loud and clear...the players find these games to be meaningless, and their meaning is decreasing by the day. Do you want to know what is not meaningless? Meaningful playoff games in December where these players have a shot at competing for a national title. Players, even the top tier NFL prospects at the lower levels, are not skipping playoff games to prep for the draft, and they need that time more than anyone. Why? Because competing for a national title is the apex of what the sport is about, and everyone wants a piece of that.
Do not buy into the argument about lost class time, because, let's be serious here, several of these guys aren't going to class anyway, and we all know it. Also, none of the lower level schools are complaining about missed class time for their athletes during a playoff, and nobody involved in the NCAA basketball tournament is sharing similar concerns about a tournament that lasts weeks, and plays multiple times per week. It's a fight tat cannot be won on any logical front.
The model is simple...most bowls are scrapped, because they need to be anyway. We simply do not need bowl games in the Bahamas, and nobody has cared about the Aloha/Hawaii bowl in years, if they ever did. You keep the best bowls for the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals.
First and second round games are played at the higher seeded campus sites. There is no committee involved in selection. Every conference champion gets the auto bid, and conference championships are eliminated. The top team from each conference in first place gets the bid, and if there are ties, tiebreakers are used to determine the auto bid. The top 8 teams ranked by a formula created by an independent entity, will gain first round byes.
Playoff games begin the first weekend of December, with the last full slate of regular season games wrapping on the last Saturday of November, including the Army-Navy game, which I still do not believe needs its own weekend. The championship game will be played in the most meaningful bowl game of all-time, the Rose Bowl, every year on the second Saturday of January, with semifinals played in the Sugar and Cotton bowls on January 1. Quaterfinal games would include the Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, and Holiday Bowl.
As always, there are tweeks to be made, but this is a rough draft of a larger system that should have been implemented years ago. If it works everywhere else, there is no reason it cannot work for major college football, and all conferences can benefit greatly.
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