I have come up with a playoff proposal I think can work. It keeps the bowl system while integrating the playoff. See below.<br />=====================<br /><br />Playoff Proposal<br />Jan 4, 2012<br />By Jason Sherr<br /><br />16 Team Playoff<br /><br />First Round to be played on the first Saturday in December<br /><br />Winners determine the teams that will play in the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange Bowls<br />Losers still eligible for other bowls<br /><br />Setup four regions (i.e. Rose Bowl Region, Fiesta Bowl Region, etc)<br /><br />Seed each region 1-4<br />#1 v #4 and #2 v #3<br />1 and 2 seeds host the first round game<br /><br />Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Orange to be played as close to New Year's Day as possible<br /><br />For this past season, would play a game Fri, Dec 30 (8 pm eastern, 5 pm pacific) and the other 3 on Sat, Dec 31 (noon eastern, 4 pm eastern and 8 pm eastern)<br /><br />Winners play the semifinal either :<br />Fri, Jan 6 at 5 pm eastern and 9 pm eastern or you could consider Sat, Jan 7 in the morning and Sun Jan 8 (avoid NFL playoff schedule)<br /><br />Rose Bowl winner v Fiesta Bowl winner<br />Sugar Bowl winner vs. Orange Bowl winner<br />Site of semifinal alternates between the rose/fiesta and sugar/orange each year<br /><br />National championship to be played on MLK weekend on Sun night (this year would be Jan 15) at 8 pm eastern, gives people extra time to get there and an extra day to get back<br /><br />Location could be one of the bowl sites not used for the semifinal or this year's Super Bowl site<br /><br /><br />If this was used in 2011, it might look something like this (just using BCS standings for purpose of an example- would recommend a committee like the NCAA basketball tournament and use a BCS style formula- much like RPI as a piece of the puzzle). That said, you could just simply use the 6 automatics and have 10 at larges based purely on the BCS formula which is what I did here. West Virginia gets the automatic from the Big East.<br /><br />Rose Bowl Region<br /><br />#1 Oregon<br />#2 Stanford<br />#3 Wisconsin<br />#4 Michigan<br /><br />Fiesta Bowl Region<br /><br />#1 Oklahoma St.<br />#2 Boise St<br />#3 South Carolina<br />#4 Oklahoma<br /><br />Sugar Bowl Region<br /><br />#1 LSU<br />#2 Arkansas<br />#3 Virgina Tech<br />#4 Clemson<br /><br />Orange Bowl Region<br />#1 Alabama<br />#2 Kansas St<br />#3 Baylor<br />#4 West Virginia<br /><br />First Round<br />Sat, Dec 3, 2011<br /><br />Bowl Games<br />Fri, Dec 30- 1 game<br />Sat, Dec 31- 3 games<br /><br />Semifinal<br />Fri, Jan 6- 2 games<br /><br />Nat'l Champ<br />Sun, Jan 15 <br /><br />Note- College season used to start for many teams the Saturday before Labor Day, that could be brought back for an extra week. The regular season could also be reduced back to 11 games form 12. Most teams used to finish the reg season the Sat before Thanksgiving.<br /><br />If a conference has a championship game then the last regular season game would need to be the sat before Thanksgiving and the conference championship would be on Thanksgiving weekend. If no conference championship then the regular season could end on Thanksgiving weekend.

I stopped reading at "16 team playoff." lulz

1) Pac-12 champ plays Big Ten champ in Rose Bowl<br />2) See step 1<br /><br />Seriously, if the purpose of a play-off is to determine a national champion, why should a team that fails to win its own conference even be considered?

No New Year's Day games? Fail.

<blockquote><div class="name-said">milvia;667400 said:</div><hr>Seriously, if the purpose of a play-off is to determine a national champion, why should a team that fails to win its own conference even be considered?<hr></blockquote><br /><br />Because nearly every sports league with a playoff system includes some number of Wild Card berths?

This is what I've wanted all along. But I suggest that all 11 conferences send their champ as an auto-bid and then there were 5 at-large bids. This way, everyone has a shot and tradition is kept.

Seems pretty well thought out. Thanks for the effort. I'm sure with minor tweaking it could work.