Conference championship game is round 1 of the playoffs if you didn't notice.
In my suggested system, there are EIGHT division champs, who play a conference championship to narrow it to FOUR conference champs. These four pair to play an "elimination" bowl game, with the winners squaring off for the national championship.
I created a playoff system in which the LONGEST your season can possibly be, given 12 regular season games, and 3 post season game (conference champ, bowl playoff, national champ) is 15 total games, just one game longer than the current longest possible season (and only two teams play this).
And you still keep every single bowl game. Bowl season kicks off with those two play off games. Then you fit all the bowls in the middle, and cap off the college football season with the national championship game.
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