WildWest Football Board

I do agree that you can't just take the top 16 teams and call it a day.  That will result in watering down the regular season. So how do you do it?  

If you've been following me you know what I think:  Conduct your tournament the same way every other NCAA tournament is conducted (at least for the sports that contain more than 20 teams).  Every conference gets an auto-bid.  Even the crappy ones.

This serves two purposes towards keeping the regular season important:  

1.  It makes it important to get the 1 seed.  Would you rather face Troy in round 1, or Oregon
2.  It limits the number of at large bids.

Today there are 5 BCS games.  10 teams get in, 6 from the BCS conferences.  This leaves us with 4 at large bids
There are 11 conferences.  In a 16 team playoff, this leaves us with 5 at large bids. 

Thus a 16 team tournament is only 1 team easier to enter than today's BCS bowls.  You aren't going to see teams that were accepting bids to the Alamo bowl in this playoff.

Host round 1 at the higher seed's home turf and round 2/3 in the major bowls (Something like Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Orange, Cotton, and maybe Capital one.)

Let's take a look at what it looks like the last few years:

2012:

#16 La Tech (8-5) at #1 LSU (13-1)

#9 Va tech (11-3) at #8 Wisconsin (11-3)

#12 Southern Miss (12-2) at #5 Oregon (12-2)

#13 West Virginia (10-3) at #4 Stanford (11-2)

#11 TCU (11-2) at #6 Boise St (12-1)

#14 Ark State (10-3) at #3 Ok State(12-1)

#10 Clemson (10-4) at #7 K State (10-3)

#15 Northern Illinois (11-3) at #2 Alabama( 12-1)

Notes on how the regular season stayed important:  
1.  Pretty steep gap between Ark State and WVA.  
2.  13-1 Houston does NOT make it in the tournament, sucks to lose your championship game.
3.  Other notables out:  10-2 USC would NOT have made this tourny had they been eligable, 11-2 Arkansas didn't get in.  11-3 Michigan State, 11-2 Michigan, 10-3 Cincinnati, 10-3 Oklahoma, all go home, and Michigan was a BCS team.
4.  Not a single team from a BCS conference made my playoffs that didn't make a current BCS game with the exception of K State, who replaced Michigan. 

Only one dog in there at all:  La Tech, and they get served up to LSU at home.  It's nice to be #1.

2011

#16 FIU (7-6) at #1 Auburn (14-0)

#9 Boise (12-1) at #8 Arkansas (10-3)

#12 Nevada (13-1) at #5 Wisconsin(11-2)

#13 Uconn (8-5) at #4 Stanford (12-2)

#11 Va Tech (11-3) at #6 Ohio State (12-1)

#14 UCF (11-3) at #3 TCU(13-0)

#10 Missouri (10-3) at #7 Oklahoma (12-2)

#15 NIU (11-3) at #2 Oregon( 12-1)

Some trends to notice.  
1.  Solid Mid Majors getting their chance (Nevada vs Wisconsin)
2.  A whole bunch of great games in the middle (Va Tech at Ohio State, Missouri at Oklahoma, Boise at Arkansas
3.  Weaklings served up to the big boys for an easy first round, rewarding #1 and #2.  In this case it goes a little deeper with crappy UConn making an appearance (but they did that in a BCS Bowl game too)

One more
2010 

#16 Troy (9-4) at #1 Alabama (14-0)

#9 Ga Tech (11-3) at #8 Ohio State (11-2)

#12 BYU (11-2) at #5 Florida(13-1)

#13 Pitt (10-2) at #4 TCU (12-1)

#11 Va Tech (10-3) at #6 Boise (14-0)

#14 Central Mich (12-2) at #3 Cincy(12-1)

#10 Iowa (11-2) at #7 Oregon (10-3)

#15 Houston (10-4) at #2 Texas( 13-1)

How can you not love that.  Probably the best setup of them all.  Some pretty killer matchups like Va Tech traveling to Boise, Iowa traveling to Oregon, Pitt traveling to TCU, Ga Tech at the shoe.  Even the gimmies are trouble after Troy, and no undeserving BCS school bids.