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I disagree. It would be incredibly simple to set up.
I'm in favor of a smaller +3 playoff with the opening round being played among the eight teams placed in the 4 major bowls featuring the traditional matchups of the champions of the 5 major conferences - B1G, Big XII, SEC, ACC & Pac12.
Rose Bowl - B1G champ vs. Pac12 champ
Sugar Bowl - SEC champ vs. At large
Fiesta Bowl - Big XII champ vs. At large
Orange Bowl - ACC champ vs. At large
So instead of using the incredibly flawed BCS to determine the 2 best teams, use the BCS to determine the 3 best at-large teams. In this manner, the BCS can love the SEC West as much as it wants, but a non-division winner is going to have to fight its way into the national championship game.
After inserting the anticipated conference winners (per sportswriting prognosticators), the result of the Basic proposal would likely be:
Rose Bowl - Wisconsin vs. Oregon
Sugar Bowl - LSU vs. Stanford
Fiesta Bowl - Oklahoma St. vs. Arkansas
Orange Bowl - Clemson vs. Alabama
That's not a bad opening round. Of course, with upsets the next 2 weeks the following mess could also occur:
Rose Bowl - Penn St. vs. UCLA
Sugar Bowl - Georgia vs. Houston
Fiesta Bowl - Oklahoma vs. Boise State
Orange Bowl - Virginia vs. LSU
But even this mess is better than being forced to watch a Big Least team playing in a major bowl.
The Second Round would match up:
Rose winner vs. Orange winner
Sugar winner vs. Fiesta winner
The National Championship Game would then feature the Round 2 winners. This scenario would only require one additional week of play for the semi-finals and only 2 additional games beyond the existing bowl schedule. Real simple.
Sorry, Mountain West, Conference USA, MAC & WAC. Your conferences do not have enough good teams from top-to-bottom for your league champions to qualify for an automatic berth. Sorry, Big Least you do not have any good teams, period.
Independents like Notre Dame & BYU and teams in the 5 minor conferences can qualify for the playoffs, but only in extraordinary years. Unfortunately for them, the SEC has three Top 5 teams this year. And unless Stanford falls down against Cal, Stanford is better than either Boise St. or Houston.
BUT if you really wanted to things up to a wider playoff, I could support a 6-team play-in round featuring the top 6 BCS finishers who did not win their conferences. The champs of the 5 major conferences would get a 1st round bye. In this scenario, pairings would be:
Round 1
Holiday Bowl - At-large #1 vs. At-large #6
Cotton Bowl - At-large #2 vs. At-large #5
Gator Bowl - At-large #3 vs. At-large #4
Adding in teams (again using anticipated results of the next 2 weeks), the opening round would look like this:
Round 1
Holiday Bowl - Alabama vs. Oklahoma
Cotton Bowl - Stanford vs. Houston
Gator Bowl - Arkansas vs. Boise St.
Round 2 would then be:
Rose Bowl - Wisconsin vs. Oregon
Sugar Bowl - LSU vs. Gator winner
Fiesta Bowl - Oklahoma St. vs. Cotton winner
Orange Bowl - Clemson vs. Holiday winner
Round 3 would match up:
Rose winner vs. Orange winner
Sugar winner vs. Fiesta winner
The National Championship Game would then feature the Round 3 winners. While this scenario is more complicated, it would still only add just one additional week of play for the semi-finals and only 2 additional games beyond the existing bowl schedule.
Round 1 Nightmare would be:
Holiday Bowl - LSU (at-large #1) vs. Houston (at-large #6)
Cotton Bowl - Arkansas (at-large #2) vs. Boise St. (at-large #5)
Gator Bowl - Oklahoma St. (at-large #3) vs. Alabama (at-large #4)
Round 2 Nightmare would be:
Rose Bowl - Penn St. vs. UCLA
Sugar Bowl - Georgia vs. Gator winner
Fiesta Bowl - Oklahoma vs. Cotton winner
Orange Bowl - Virginia vs. Holiday winner
While Penn St., UCLA, Georgia & Virginia are rewarded for being upset league champs, most of the top 10 BCS teams still have a chance to play their way to the top.
Most importantly, the Big Least is still nowhere to be seen.