it's amazing how high in the polling mediocre teams in mediocre conferences end up.

What we don't want to see is a bantam-weight go up against a heavy-weight in the Final Four.

Remember Alabama/Notre Dame a couple years ago? The championship committee will try to eliminate that.

The big conferences make a literal fortune from their TV contracts from football and basketball. Set up a playoff structure that is identical to the pros: a bunch of divisions that feed directly into the playoffs based only on the final standing in the division. No exceptions, no selection committee. Your "deserving" team didn't make it? Win more games next year.

As the 2nd toughest division after the SEC East according to Sagarin ratings. It might be the Big Ten East this year but Washington is no slouch, they are in the top 2 in the nation in yards per pass attempt defense.

The conference champion of these conferences get an automatic bye:

SEC
ACC
Big Ten
Big Twelve
Pac 12
(you could argue Big East too, but in my world, they are not strong enough any more)

The final three are at large picks from any conference.

Adds one week to the season for 2 teams and elevates conference championships back to critical role, which is where they should be.

So, we need maybe six large conferences with 12 automatic bids and 4 wildcard teams -- all based on either conference placement (winner/runnerup) or final W-L record. No committee, no exceptions.

We back away from the current 11 game schedules -- 9 or 10 game regular season -- and start the playoffs early. We deep-six the bowl games entirely and replace them with playoff games. Those bowl games that actually cost the participating teams money are eliminated entirely and never again see the light of day.

too much money at stake. For that reason, I see zero chance of 16 team playoff.

Because a mid major can be better than a lot of those conference champions and the American conference is tougher than people think. I want to use BCS Rankings 1 thru 4 or 1 thru 8. because they were a hell of a lot fairer to mid majors than the joke of a selection committee. It is the most biased bullshit in college sports.

How is it biased?

Mostly athletic directors from power conferences with their bullshit analysis. The AP, Coaches, or BCS are fair but this selection committee is a joke. How many are Republicans or war criminals?

none of which want to be a lesser early round bowl, nor do they want to be a bowl that has to settle for #17 and lower.

At least that was what i remember as the real reason behind the goofy "let's have some guys in a room pick 'em" system.

All the other levels do it and it would make huge bucks - but there are egos involved.

Sort of reminds me of college basketball being unwilling to challenge the NIT for many years.

My biggest issue is elevating conference champions. It is supposed to be part of the formula now, but who knows how much weight they give it? If we stick with a four team playoff, I would want to change the rule so that if you don't win your conference championship, you are excluded from the national title picture. Tough tootsies Ohio State and every other "great" team that could not manage to win inside their own conference.

and I'm an Ohio State fan. I don't think they should be ranked higher than 5 right now and should not be in the playoffs.

I have a problem with a f'n selection committee

No argument there.

I never got the point of the committee. They're not special. A computer can do the exact same thing without playing favorites and changing the criteria yearly.