A College Football Playoff System That Actually Works

The postseason format to determine the national champion can involve eight teams, the four major bowls, and a fair result.  The eight teams involved will be the top eight of the BCS rankings, regardless of conference. 

The reason a conference champion from a major BCS conference doesn't receive an automatic bid is because they’re not always a top program.  In the 2006 season Florida State won the ACC Conference championship game and played in the Orange Bowl with an 8-4 record.  The top eight teams in the BCS rankings will be the teams used in the playoff.

The four major bowls (Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Rose Bowl) will still be used.  These will be the sites of the first round of the playoffs.  This way each of the top eight teams still gets a bowl game and the bowl games have more integrity. 

The bowl game sites for the first round matchups will be randomly selected for each match-up after the final BCS standings are in.  This will be on instead  of what is now known as “Selection Sunday.”    The second round of the playoffs will be held at the site of the BCS National Championship game, just like many high school playoffs are done. 

Also this will prevent teams from waiting almost two months from their last game to their bowl game.  When Ohio State played Florida for the national championship in January of 2007 they waited 51 days from their final regular season game to the national championship. 

There is no reason to make a team wait that long to play when an entire playoff could be done in that time. 

The BCS playoffs would begin two weeks after the conference championship games are played.  This will give every team in the playoffs one week off before their first round game.  The remaining teams not in the BCS playoff will still play their bowl games like normal.

The playoff will last four weeks as the week between the semi-finals and championship game will be a bye week.  Seeding the playoff will be a standard 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6, and 4 vs. 5.  If we had a playoff this year it would be as follows. 

Teams in the playoff:  Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, TCU, Florida, Boise State, Oregon, and Ohio State.  The first round of the playoffs will feature Alabama vs. Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl, Texas vs. Oregon in the Rose Bowl, Cincinnati vs. Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl, and TCU vs. Florida in the Orange Bowl. 

The second and third rounds of the playoff will be held in Pasadena where the National Championship is held.  This way the teams will be accustomed to playing in that building and have an opportunity to scout there opponent. 

Now the top eight teams in the country will each have a fair shot at the national championship and there won’t be potentially three undefeated teams at the end of the year. 

This is my opinion on how to solve this BCS mess.  I realize there are more things that go into this than what I probably think, but at least this could be a format for the higher-ups in the NCAA to go by to fix this problem.