Ok, here goes nothing:


SEC, Pac 10, Big XII, CUSA, ACC, Big Ten, MWC, Big East all get automatic bids to the playoffs. The MAC has to play the winner of the Sunbelt and the WAC conferences to get a shot at the playoffs, but gets a probation period to see if it is worthy of an autobid like the SEC, Pac 10, et. all. The champions are ranked using a combination of the AP, Coaches, BCS, and a committee. There is also one at-large slot in the mix.
Ok, have at it!!

If I have it right, you're suggesting 8 auto bids plus the winner of the MAC vs. SB/WAC play-in game. That makes 9 teams, and therefore a difficult playoff number. How about dropping CUSA into the play-in bracket as well? My guess is that the MAC will generally have it's top teams stronger than the CUSA's in the next decade or so, and therefore shouldn't be set lower than CUSA.

My problem then would be with the number of games that a WAC/SB/MAC/CUSA team might be playing. 12 schedule season, championship game, then two more games just to get into a "BCS tournament." Since you suggest using a ranking combination to set the playoffs, why not just give the one at-large bid to the highest rated team from the bottom four conferences.

Personally, I don't mind seeing the power conferences limited to one bid each - as in your scenario. Sure, some years a conference will have more than one stellar team, but this guarentees that even during off years, the conference gets to send somebody.

major bump

As the last few years have somewhat shown, the MAC has not been consistently stronger than C-USA, especially when it comes to alumni base, market, attendance, and endowment. The MAC has drawn consistently terrible, in the last three years as in 'one season of above 25,000 attendance for the whole conference' terrible. Sun Belt Terrible.

Plus, the MWC can make a claim to have influence in maybe two major DMA's: Columbus and Cincinatti. Meanwhile, C-uSA can claim to have influence in Houston, Dallas, Orlando, Tidewater VA/Eastern NC, Tulsa, Memphis and El Paso. Plus, C-USA has consitently better saragin ratings, usually ranking around 10th while the MAC is behind several FCS conferences around 12th or 14th.

The logical thing to do would be to put all the conferences on a probationary period, even the Sun Belt. I think you'll find, after several years of analyzing computer rankings, top 25 polls, etc., that Conference USA and the MWC are the two worthy conferences.