The six games a year that are currently not on the schedule is where this plan gains supporters (aka: this is where the money is). There are six games to be played, and there are 12 conferences in the Bowl Championship Division, including independents. One year, six conferences get to host a playoff game in one of their stadiums, and the next year the other six conferences get to host games.

There should be a minimum of 40,000 seats per stadium for the first round of games, with the minimum jumping up to 60,000 for the semifinal games. This will limit some of the smaller conferences to two or three eligible stadiums, as well as put the entire Sun Belt conference under the limit (no system’s perfect). But that’s what it’s going to take to have a national-caliber game played in a smaller conference’s stadium.

But even with the 40,000 seat-minimum, only one conference is left out - in fact, if we jumped the requirements to 50,000 we’d still cover all our bases but one. Temple could represent the MAC, Hawaii could represent the WAC, Notre Dame could represent the independents, three different teams could represent the Mountain West conference, and five different teams could represent Conference USA.

The method of choosing the stadium of representation can be up to the conference - rotation, conference champion, the team with the best record and an eligible stadium, or maybe some other method.

Fans will complain for more seats, but they’ll have to realize that with the four major bowls still featuring big conference match-ups, there will be alternatives for those
who don’t get tickets to the playoff. And there’s always next year.

It may sound a little far-fetched to have USC playing LSU in South Bend, but I know a lot of people who would make the trip. If OU ended up playing in UNLV’s Sam Boyd Stadium (max 40,000, the smallest possible stadium under this plan) I don’t see why I wouldn’t go see my team in a new stadium that we don’t often get to go to. We would take logic into account and not have Maryland playing Florida in USC’s Coliseum - a purely mechanical and illogical scheduling of games could be a major flaw in this system. If we try to keep teams near their region or at least close to splitting the difference of distance, it would make sense. But even if we did have teams playing in out-of-the-way places, it wouldn’t be much different than bowls now - and fans still make the occasionally cross-country trip.

That way the proponents of the BCS are happy, small conferences are happy, big conferences are unaffected except for the fact that we might get the national championship right, small bowl organizers are unaffected and therefore happy, big bowl organizers are unaffected and therefore very happy, writers are happy and fans are happy. It looks like a win-win-win-win-win-win-win situation.