As a little break from the heat over the "atlantic league," I'd like to suggest a workable approach to college football playoffs.
1) Limit the regular season to 11 games, beginning the 3rd weekend in August. This allows each team one bye week and still finishes the weekend before Thanksgiving.
2) The weekend after Thanksgiving, a 16 team single-elimination playoff begins.
3) If you win, you're in: There are 11 1-A conferences. If you win your conference, you're in the playoffs.
4) The five remaining slots go to the five highest-ranked teams which aren't conference winners. The rank would be determined by combining the coaches poll, writers poll, a legitimate and neutral computer analysis (supervised by a respected firm like Price Waterhouse, the people who guard the Oscars) and perhaps even a fan poll.
5) This poll also determines the seed of the tournament. #1 plays #16, #2 plays #15, and so on.
6) The top eight seeds also host the first round of play. The final three rounds rotate among the major bowls.
Granting that this is just my pipedream, any comments? <img border="0" alt="[angel]" title="" src="graemlins/angel.gif" />
