the way to do the playoffs, by liver:
first, you have to decide how inclusive you want to be. i'd go with every bcs conference, plus maybe a few more. that dictates how big the playoffs should be.
so, if you go with a 16 team playoff, it might work something like this... every conference in the tourney system would have to have a championship game and every conference would have to have 12 teams. the p10 would need to add 2. the b10 would add one, etc.
the winners of the p12, b12, b10+2, sec, acc, and big east each get an automatic seed. that's 6 spots taken. then maybe you even add the wac, mac, and mwc (if each has 12 teams and a conf. champ game) and give each of their conf. champions a bid, too. that's 3 more for a total of nine slots.
for the remaining 7 slots, you do a tourney selection committee (like they do now for basketball) and you take the teams that maybe didn't win their conference but are definitely worthy of being in the playoffs... for example, this year, you'd have to think about texas and tech from the b12 and georgia and bama from the sec...
that's how you get your 16 teams. all teams that aren't in the tourney can get bowl bids (except for the bowl bids described below).
the first round of the playoffs is a homegame for the higher seeded team.
the round of 8 is played at "bowl games."
the round of 4 is played at bowl games.
the championship game is played at a bowl game.
that's 7 games at "bowls." you rotate among the rose, sugar, orange, fiesta, cotton, holiday, and one other so that each gets the championship game on a rotating basis.
next, you have to do something about the number of games. so, you take everyone back to an 11 game schedule in the regular season. the extra playoff money split among all the participating conferences will more than compensate for the loss of 1 regular season game.
that way, most teams will play only eleven games. if a team goes all the way, it will have, at most, played 11 regular season games, plus the conf. championship game, plus 4 playoff games (that's 16 total; some teams are already at 14 now, and if and "at large" playoff team goes all the way it is 15 games, just one more than many teams play now).
this would print money for everyone and it would be fantastic to watch.
think about this year: usc, texas, fla., bama, georgia, tech, ou, penn state, boise state, utah, etc. that would EXCITING!!!
finally, you have to do something for the players since you are adding to their season. so, put some $$ aside for their healthy and benefits so that they have some protection.
anyhow, this would work.