My Two Cents: US College Football Playoff

There are 11 conferences in US college football, plus (now 3) colleges unaffiliated with a conference.
(Known as the I-A Independents)
There are 120 colleges in the United States that play top-level (Division I-A) football.


My proposal is:
All teams play a 12-game regular season. This includes games against all teams in their own conference.

Conferences fielding eight teams:
play all seven opponents once (7), three opponents a second time (10), and one (designated as a rival) two more times after that (12).

These conferences can theoretically be split into two divisions of four to ease scheduling, and decide on who the real rivals are.

Conferences fielding nine teams:
Are split into three groups of three.

They play the two teams in their own group three times each (6) and all other schools in the conference once (12).

Conferences fielding 10 teams:
Are split into two divisions of five.
They play their four divisional opponents twice (eight), and four of five teams in the other division once (12).

Conferences fielding 11 teams:
Have one division of six, and one of five teams.

The division of six teams sees each team play its opponents twice, and two teams in the other division once. (10+2)
The division of five teams sees each team play its opponents twice, two of the other division once, and 2 "select teams" once more. (8+2+2)

The "select teams" are as follows:
1 matches with 2 and 3
2 matches with 1 and 5
3 matches with 1 and 4
4 matches with 3 and 5
5 matches with 2 and 4

Conferences fielding 12 teams:
Are split into two divisions of six.
They play all of their own divisional opponents twice (10), and two in the other division once (12).

As for the Independents, they can be treated as a conference.
Air Force should move from the MWC to join Army, Navy and Notre Dame.
They play each other anyway.

Four games are played in September, four games in October, four games in November.

At the end of the season, ALL college conferences will be obliged to stage a championship game between their top two teams to determine their conference champion, if the top two teams finish within one game of each other (i.e. 11-1 and 10-2).

If there is a clear winner after the season is concluded (i.e. a 12-0 team, with the next-best team being 10-2), no championship game is required. The 12-0 team wins the conference title.

ROUND ONE

7 of these 11 conference champions, plus the best 2nd-place team or best Independent play at the sites of the 4 major bowls during the second week of December (8th to 14th).
The four winning teams move on.
The schools can then break for exams and holidays.

ROUND TWO

The four major bowl games are the Orange, Sugar, Rose, and Fiesta Bowl. The winners from round 1 meet up with the four top-ranked conference champions in these bowl games. Four teams move on in the playoff from here.

The TOP 4 conference champions get byes to round 2, which, coincidentally, will be the four major bowl games. The bowl games have historical significance in college football, and some college conferences have contractual tie-ins which give them huge sums of money.

This is the main reason that college presidents in these conferences are against a playoff. They don't want to give up the money that their schools earn through the bowls. This playoff system does not get rid of them.

ROUND THREE

In round 3, 2 of the sites of those bowl games host the semi-final games.
The following season, the other two sites host the semi-finals.

ROUND FOUR

The FBS championship will also rotate between the 4 bowls, as it does now.

So there you have it. No bowls get eliminated, which makes the college presidents happy. The teams that get knocked out of the playoff can also go on to play in other bowls if they so wish.