[ColoradoTree]

So, once you've determined the teams in the playoff, there are a few ways for having them play.

Scenario #1 is to have the quarterfinals played on campus sites, with seeding determined by a committee.  1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, 3 plays 6, and 4 plays 5.  The semifinal games are played at two of the New Year's Six bowl games (Rose, Cotton, Peach, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange), and the championship game is at whichever NFL stadium bids for it.  The bowls wouldn't be super happy about this, because they're losing 4 quality teams from the bowl mix.  I generally like this idea and think it's probably the most workable, but it also diminishes the importance of the Rose, which makes me sad, though the Rose would get the Big Ten and Pac-10 runner-ups in non-semifinal years (and you could even have a rider that says that if the Big Ten and Pac-10* champs make it to the semis, they play each other in the Rose, regardless of seed).

Scenario #2 is to have the NY6 bowls be the quarterfinals AND semifinals every year, with the QF bowls played on January 1, the semis two weeks later, and the final the week after that (timing can be negotiated here).  The bowls love it because they all get meaningful, marquee games every single year.  It's brutal on fans, though, who face three trips to three different cities in a compressed timeframe.  A version of this scenario would have the QF bowls in mid-December, the SF bowls two weeks later on New Year's Day, and the national championship game two weeks after that, to give the fans a rest.  In a year where the Rose is slated for an early QF matchup, though, it wouldn't be able to both play on New Year's Day and host a Pac-10/Big Ten matchup, so it would have to choose whether it wanted to be included in those QF games. 

Scenario #3 is where I get a little crazy.  If we don't think it's workable to do QF and SF games all in bowls because of fan travel, and we don't want to lose the traditional Rose Bowl matchup forever more, and we don't want to take 4 of the top 8 teams out of the bowl mix to mollify the Powers That Be, then we can be a little creative.  Here's the plan: the top 4 bowls are the national quarterfinals (all on January 1), the semis are played on campus sites, and the championship game is played at whichever NFL stadium bids for it.  All teams are seeded, but the Rose keeps the Pac-10/Big Ten matchup, regardless of seed.  The remaining champs and the wild card are paired by seed as determined by a committee and placed in a rotation of bowls that includes the current roster of NY6 bowls (Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, Peach, and Cotton).  (The Rose gets special treatment because the Pac-10 and Big Ten insist on it as a condition of joining this new realigned system.)  Then the semifinals are on campus sites, with the highest remaining seed hosting the lowest remaining seed, and the second-highest remaining seed hosting the second-lowest remaining seed.  Some reasonable percentage of seats are initially reserved for the visiting team's fans if they want to make the trip, though.  But the regular season not only matters for getting into the playoff, but for determining your seed, because there's the hugely valuable home semifinal game as a potential carrot.  I know it seems harsh for a team that just won a major bowl game to go have to play a road game to get into the national title game, but having effectively three bowl games just seems like a ton to ask of a fanbase.  Logistically, it seems easier, since the bowl tickets are always complicated and difficult to manage, so giving the usual lead time for that event and then reverting to a campus site game for the semi seems like something the schools would be better able to handle than the reverse (having to handle bowl tickets and logistics on a week's notice or two weeks' notice). 

All in all, though, I think having quarterfinals on campus sites makes the most sense.  It wouldn't be a "bowl experience," but going to play a national quarterfinal game in the Big House in Ann Arbor or the Horseshoe in Columbus or Bryant-Denny in Tuscaloosa would be its own special college football experience.  I'd much rather go to some place like that than to Orlando or Miami or Phoenix.  You'd need to reserve a larger chunk of seats for away fans than teams normally do for normal games, but that's doable.  Then you could have those games in mid- to late-December without affecting the existing bowl schedule.  (Note: this is probably what happens if we move to an 8-team playoff without the radical realignment shown above.) 

* I say Pac-10 because I'm still assuming the radical realignment noted in the last post, which gets to seven 10-team conferences. 

[ColoradoTree]

So, once you've determined the teams in the playoff, there are a few ways for having them play.

Scenario #1 is to have the quarterfinals played on campus sites, with seeding determined by a committee.  1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, 3 plays 6, and 4 plays 5.  The semifinal games are played at two of the New Year's Six bowl games (Rose, Cotton, Peach, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange), and the championship game is at whichever NFL stadium bids for it.  The bowls wouldn't be super happy about this, because they're losing 4 quality teams from the bowl mix.  I generally like this idea and think it's probably the most workable, but it also diminishes the importance of the Rose, which makes me sad, though the Rose would get the Big Ten and Pac-10 runner-ups in non-semifinal years (and you could even have a rider that says that if the Big Ten and Pac-10* champs make it to the semis, they play each other in the Rose, regardless of seed).

Scenario #2 is to have the NY6 bowls be the quarterfinals AND semifinals every year, with the QF bowls played on January 1, the semis two weeks later, and the final the week after that (timing can be negotiated here).  The bowls love it because they all get meaningful, marquee games every single year.  It's brutal on fans, though, who face three trips to three different cities in a compressed timeframe.  A version of this scenario would have the QF bowls in mid-December, the SF bowls two weeks later on New Year's Day, and the national championship game two weeks after that, to give the fans a rest.  In a year where the Rose is slated for an early QF matchup, though, it wouldn't be able to both play on New Year's Day and host a Pac-10/Big Ten matchup, so it would have to choose whether it wanted to be included in those QF games. 

Scenario #3 is where I get a little crazy.  If we don't think it's workable to do QF and SF games all in bowls because of fan travel, and we don't want to lose the traditional Rose Bowl matchup forever more, and we don't want to take 4 of the top 8 teams out of the bowl mix to mollify the Powers That Be, then we can be a little creative.  Here's the plan: the top 4 bowls are the national quarterfinals (all on January 1), the semis are played on campus sites, and the championship game is played at whichever NFL stadium bids for it.  All teams are seeded, but the Rose keeps the Pac-10/Big Ten matchup, regardless of seed.  The remaining champs and the wild card are paired by seed as determined by a committee and placed in a rotation of bowls that includes the current roster of NY6 bowls (Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, Peach, and Cotton).  (The Rose gets special treatment because the Pac-10 and Big Ten insist on it as a condition of joining this new realigned system.)  Then the semifinals are on campus sites, with the highest remaining seed hosting the lowest remaining seed, and the second-highest remaining seed hosting the second-lowest remaining seed.  Some reasonable percentage of seats are initially reserved for the visiting team's fans if they want to make the trip, though.  But the regular season not only matters for getting into the playoff, but for determining your seed, because there's the hugely valuable home semifinal game as a potential carrot.  I know it seems harsh for a team that just won a major bowl game to go have to play a road game to get into the national title game, but having effectively three bowl games just seems like a ton to ask of a fanbase.  Logistically, it seems easier, since the bowl tickets are always complicated and difficult to manage, so giving the usual lead time for that event and then reverting to a campus site game for the semi seems like something the schools would be better able to handle than the reverse (having to handle bowl tickets and logistics on a week's notice or two weeks' notice). 

All in all, though, I think having quarterfinals on campus sites makes the most sense.  It wouldn't be a "bowl experience," but going to play a national quarterfinal game in the Big House in Ann Arbor or the Horseshoe in Columbus or Bryant-Denny in Tuscaloosa would be its own special college football experience.  I'd much rather go to some place like that than to Orlando or Miami or Phoenix.  You'd need to reserve a larger chunk of seats for away fans than teams normally do for normal games, but that's doable.  Then you could have those games in mid- to late-December without affecting the existing bowl schedule.  (Note: this is probably what happens if we move to an 8-team playoff without the radical realignment shown above.) 

* I say Pac-10 because I'm still assuming the radical realignment noted in the last post, which gets to seven 10-team conferences.