• 16 teams, with autobids for the top 5 conference champions.
  • Notre Dame, BYU, Texas, and Vanderbilt get the extra bids
  • No byes, everyone plays every round.
  • All campus sites until the final game if possible, or at least until the semifinals. The teams with the better regular seasons earned the homefield advantage.
  • Rather than a straight 1-16 seeding, have 2 each of 1, 2, 3, etc. This way, we can avoid rematches before the final when possible, and keep teams geographically closer if possible so that road fans have an easier time getting there.
  • Play it in December and have the championship game at a neutral site on the first Saturday of January. No more stretching until January 20 or so.


Would this eliminate controversy? No. Now in this bracket Utah and USC fans would be upset. But it wouldn't be on the level we're seeing today. Notre Dame would have had a legitimate shot to win the title. Personally, I think Vanderbilt could have made a deep run too, and while I don't think BYU had a legitimate shot, I can sympathize with a team who went 11-1 in the regular season feeling like they deserve a chance. I don't think Utah and USC would inspire the same level of outrage.

There's no such thing as a perfect system, because every year is different, and you could still have 10-2 P4 teams getting left out some years, and in others you might have a bunch of 9-3 teams get in. There's no way to avoid that, and that's fine. But I think this system would generally cause less controversy, and that opening weekend would be a lot of fun every year. Even the Indiana-James Madison matchup is compelling despite being an obvious blowout given Cignetti's history.