So I've come up with a proposal for the NCAA.
You want the rankings to mean something provable?
Move all teams to 12 games, and the NCAA will schedule at least 2 of the 4-ish non-conference game spots based on previous year end rankings. Teams can opt in to a Tier structure for a given year, and they'll take whoever the NCAA spits out. Teams with less than 8 conference games can schedule more games in the system if they wish.
So 4 Tiers. Top 10, Top 20, Top 50, All.
Then there will be fantastic opportunity for fun games between schools.
Rule 1) no extra in-conference games, these are all out of conference
Rule 2) Tier selection will be taken into account on the BCS (or sucessor) ranking systems
Rule 3) Money for the Tier games is put into a pool, and split between the teams involved, as compared to with the conferences. Schools are not required to participate (but the TV money will strongly encourge that.)
Then the rankings give people an idea how to compare teams up.
And we can avoid a playoff. (and we know where I stand on that)
Thoughts? Where can we improve this to make it work?