College football needs a 16 team playoff system.

If your "National Champion" is decided by committee you have a pageant winner not a sporting winner. As a kid back in the 1970s I never understood why division one college football did not have an end of season tournament like very other sport. For 145 years as many as 13 different mathematical means and 23 different polls have been used to pick a winner. Then came the BCS, conference tie-ins made it a joke as far as deciding who played in the "Big Four" Sugar, Fiesta, Rose and Orange Bowls. The top 8 teams were supposed to get in and that never happened and again you had a third party deciding who played in the championship game.

My Plan:

Take each conference winner plus six wildcards based on the current or a version of the current BCS rankings. I know, again you have a poll and math deciding who will get to play but for only six of the 16 teams and from that point skill and sometimes luck we determine the National Champion.

Current FBS Conferences

Atlantic Coast 

Big 12 

Big Ten

Pac 12

Southeastern 

Conference USA 

Mid-American 

Mountain West 

Sun Belt 

Western Athletic 

Sure not all conferences are created equal but those are the conferences as they are. NCAA basketball lets everyone and their dog into March Madness and sometimes albeit not very often you get a lower seated team beating a power house and they say that is what makes the tournament so "Magical." 

The first step would be painful for the traditionalists:

1: Make the regular season 10 games ending Thanksgiving Day weekend. Play conference championships the following weekend.

2: The round of 16 to be held on the second Saturday in December.

3: The round of eight on the third Saturday in December.

4: The final four on new years day.

5: The final on the second Saturday of January.

The higher seeds will have home field advantage until the final four. The Big Four will become the final four. The traditional bowl season of 30+ bowls not involved in the tournament would be for the teams who are not conference champs and the losers of the first and second rounds. 

Seems elementary to me and the biggest drawback preventing it from happening would be any perceived loss of revenue by the NCAA.