Mark Madden's Hot Take: College Football Playoff could use less committee involvement

The new and improved 12-team College Football Playoff isn’t improved.

It’s just a different version of screwy.

It’s the word “committee.”

Things get better if you ditch that word. Eliminate subjectivity. Make it about standings and winners. Provide an exact pathway.

Right now, Ohio State is seeded fifth. The Buckeyes would play BYU in the first round, then Boise State in the quarterfinals. That’s an easier path than those afforded the first three seeds.

Here’s the right way to do it:

Realign college football’s top 44 programs into four conferences of 11 based on geography. Keep the traditional conference names if you want.

Each team plays every team in its conference once. Ten games. Five home, five away. Sites rotate from season to season.

There’s still room for nonconference games. They would no longer need to be grotesque mismatches by way of upping record and profile for the sake of the rankings. There would be more good games.

Whoever finishes first in each conference is its champion. No conference championship games.

The top two teams in each conference go into the quarterfinals of a playoff. Brackets are predetermined and rotated yearly.

The first year, for example, could be SEC champ vs. Big 12 runner-up, ACC champ vs. Big Ten runner-up, Big 12 champ vs. ACC runner-up, Big Ten champ vs. SEC runner-up. No committee. Nothing subjective. The standings dictate the seedings.

Notre Dame has to be in a conference to be eligible for the playoffs. (It’s about time.)

Keep the bowl system for teams finishing out of the playoffs.

Ditch the charade of assigning playoff games to existing bowls. Who cares about the Rose Bowl?

Don’t worry about the lower conferences, or who the 45th-best program is. None of those schools could ever win a national championship. Let them play for the Class AAA title.

This way eliminates bias. It’s pragmatic. It’s 100% fair. Free of finagling on behalf of the brand names. Realigning the conferences would restore some rivalries and reinforce others.

Believe it or not, this method would likely generate more revenue.

But some of it might not go in the same pockets.

So give my regards to the committee.