Yes, and I think there should be a way for teams from those conferences to get into the playoff, as there is today. If you start with 8 teams it only adds two weeks. More like one in that the top bowls are spread across a week now. Typically the BCS bowl is played Jan. 6 or so, I believe. If you play the quarterfinals on New Year's Day, the semis a week later, and the championship a week after that, you're done Jan. 15 or so.

Alternatively, you could play the quarterfinals a week before New Year's Day. That would leave only two "BCS" games on Jan. 1, so the big four bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta) would have to rotate. The two which don't host second round games that year would host first round games, not such a bad hit (although they would scream anyway). With this approach the championship game would be within days of when it is now.

A perfect system? No; what is? But a lot better than the farce we have now. There would be gnashing of teeth by teams ranked 9th or 10th, but IMO that's a lot better than gnashing of teeth by #3. Which in some cases has been an unbeaten team or a one loss team among several of them.

And for sure get rid of Notre Dame's fast track into a BCS game. They have a different, and more favorable, set of rules from everyone else. Not fair. And besides, I hate them ;-)

>I think we've seen over the past 5-6 years how a smaller conference can put up high quality teams, ie Utah and Boise State. Not allowing them to play for a championship is simply shameful. But, I'm not sure a playoff is totally the answer. How many teams do you start with? How do you determine which ones they are? With one game a week, the football playoffs could drag into March, truely making it mad.
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>>I agree the BCS should go away, although for a different reason. It does not succeed in determining a true national champion (as every other NCAA sport does) when only two teams get to compete, based on polls and computer gyrations. Deciding it on the field is the only fair way to go. We would already be there if the bowls weren't so lucrative.
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>>My attitude about smaller football conferences is that -- by and large, with occasional exceptions -- they are where the less talented players go. If you want to play in a BCS bowl game, play in a major conference.
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>>I realize we have different perspectives on this, partly because of who our local conferences are. I couldn't even tell you who is in the WAC and who is in the Mountain West to begin with.