What’s silly to me as that the NCAA almost had it right with the old BCS format. They had 8 teams and it maintained the traditional bowl agreements. The only thing they needed to do was playoff the winners of those games.
The current format has completely erased what little intrigue there is with the bowl season. Kids sit out to protect their draft status, games are played at weird times and in odd locations, and as a result, the outcomes mean nothing to anyone but the most intense diehards. I don’t agree with Leach’s stance on the Apple Cup being just another game, but the Holiday, Alamo, Vegas, Foster Farms bowls are significantly less meaningful to me than regular season games.
The NCAA needs an 8, 12, or 16 team playoff. Maybe the NY6 games, where the P5 conferences get 2 teams in automatically, and 4 other spots are at-large bids. The top-4 seeds get BYEs to the quarterfinal round.