One thing that Gee said that has flown under the radar:
"If you put a gun to my head and said, 'What are you going to do about a playoff system [if] the BCS system as it now exists goes away?' I would vote immediately to go back to the bowl system," he said.
He said the current system is better for the student-athletes.
"It's not about this incessant drive to have a national championship because I think that's a slippery slope to professionalism," he said. "I'm a fan of the bowl system and I think that by and large it's worked very, very well."
What that says to me, is that the threat to the BCS calling itself a "National Championship" game is very serious. Gee is basically stating that "we don't need to call it a championship game". Why would he feel the need to bring that issue up if it wasn't under direct "threat".
IIRC, there was some potential lawsuits against the BCS for calling itself a "National Championship" game.
That is the only real and valid argument that the "non-BCS" can make against the system. If you call the BCS a championship while excluding schools despite their on-the-field success, then the anti-trust/false advertising issues became tought to reconcile.
The non-BCS crowd only has a leg to stand on if college football thinks that it is "crowning a champion" via the BCS system. It really is jsut a question of packaging. If the "title game" was simply called the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, etc. etc. but used the same process to determine the participants while dropping the "Title Game" label, NOBODY could argue against it.
Now, I would much prefer a true Division I champion be crowned via a playoff. It would be much more entertaining as a fan, would be much more profitable for the schools, and would be great for the sport (IMO).
I have a problem with "exclusionary" viewpoints, because it will never end. If the "BCS" conferences were to separate from the NCAA or create a new 67 to 76 team association, then there would immediately be polarization between those members and the Washington State's, Northwestern's, and Baylor's of that group would then be seen as "inferior".
The argument about scheduling defining who the best team is each year, is silly to me. Schedules are made years in advance, conference memberships are set for years at a time. The kids in the uniforms have no control over any of that stuff, and if a team from the MWC, WAC, MAC, goes undefeated, or even one-loss, then they surely deserve to be in the "BCS bowl" picture. If one of those teams goes 8-4 then they don't, and that is the system we have. Unfortunately we get stuck with an 8-4 Big East champion in the picture, which creates the sense of "unfairness" from the MWC. If the conference can continue its growth in attendance, enrollment, and exposure then maybe in 10 or 12 years they will get a shot if the current system is in place.
Anyway, to stop rambling, I think Gee is setting the tone, or hinting at the possibility, of a return to a more traditional bowl selection process; or at least a less "controversial" label to the "title game".