Sounds like a good idea, but I do see some flaws. The fact that conference champions would not be automatics would create TONS of controversy. If you go the 12 team direction, I think that you probably should include conference champions. If you go the 8 team direction, I would completely iunderstand going the other way. Interesting concept to remove the Conference championships. Personally, I think it would be fine itf either every conference had one, or none did. Overall, I think it’s a good plan. It would be almost impossible to completely please everyone. No matter what “this is a hell of a lot better than the currrent sysetem.”

It’s pretty much a copy of the NFL, but I think that getting 12 teams involved would cover any potential “injustice” whining. There will always be some random #13 team that gets screwed because their opponent’s non-con opponent beat’s one of their non-con opponents in the last week, resulting in bla bla bla. I think that you’d get more buy in if you kept the 6 auto-bids, even if the Big East and ACC suck big time and don’t deserve a damn thing.

Still, I will always maintain that the most practical solution is to take the current system and make it a +1…. Two of the BCS bowls are played two weeks earlier than they are now between 1/4 and 2/3, then the winners play in the “FedEx BCS National Championship Game.” Next year, the other two big bowls are the playoff games. Sure, there will always be a #5 that complains, but that system is the only thing that would work with existing TV contracts and would satisfy whiny, quibbling Big East, ACC, B10, and PAC10 commissioners.

We don’t need a 8, 10, 12 or 16 team field. All you need is 6. You almost never (except this freak year) need to look 6 deep for a national champion. Also, do you really think Boise St. or Utah could survive a 3 game run through Texas, Oklahoma and Florida? The plus 1 won’t work either, what 2 teams would have played each other this year? Forget the fact that we already have an extra game (the BCS championship game). Would it be Florida vs. USC or Utah or Texas? This still leaves an argument and debate for someone.
Here’s what I would do. Don’t give a preseason rank. Rankings should come out about week 4 so that teams like Utah have a chance to be evaluated. These types of teams should also schedule a good non conference line up to boost their credibility. You tweak the BCS to reward out of conference SOS and weigh this component heavier to encourage teams to schedule good teams not cupcakes. This way you benefit from scheduling good non conference schedule but you are not killed by one loss.
You use the current BCS bowls adding the Cotton the BCS mix and rotate the playoff and championship game between these 5 bowls. Take the top 6 teams in the final BCS and put them into a playoff. I do not give preference to conference champions. No one will ever convince me that a conference champion like Cincy or BC deserve an automatic bid win they win their conference with an 8-4 record.
The top 2 teams get byes and the other 4 play in two of the bowls say Orange and Rose, depending on the rotation schedule. Then in the next round the 2 winners play the bye teams in the Cotton and Sugar (highest seed vs. lowest seed) then the championship is played in the Fiesta. This keeps the regular season as relevant and as important as it is now as well as keeps the bowl, BCS system, big business and the big bucks that drive it satisfied. It also eliminates the 30 to 50 day layoff some teams face before a game. The only thing that suffers is the traditional bowl match ups but as far as I can tell the Rose is the only bowl that throws a fit about this. You could play with the rotation a bit so that as long as say the Rose Bowl is not the championship game and say USC is a higher seed they get to play the quarter or semi final in the Rose Bowl, likewise, Texas could play a round 1 or 2 game in the Cotton etc… just a possible way to keep bowl affiliations.