I actually liked the format pre BCS. There wasn't 20 teams in a conference and going to a bowl game actually mattered. The bowl matchups also mattered. Regular season games mattered.
But they didn't want to do votes anymore and have co-national champions. So they created the BCS, and introduced algorithms instead of humans to pick who plays for the "title". Running up the score mattered. Instead of "style" points, they needed to feed the algorithms.
Then they created a playoff. They didn't know what to call it, so they just named it the "College Football Playoff". The ONLY difference between that and the old way is instead of going with the AP and Coaches poll, a ground of "special" people got to sit in a room and decide the 4 teams. Now they get to pick 12 and eventually 16.
Then you add in the fukkery with the conferences. The SEC and Big 10 plotted to and has successfully monopolized perception by poaching schools to create super conferences and weaken others. They are already angling to get 8 guaranteed spots, if they go to a 16 team format.
There are currently 10 FBS conferences. Out of those 10, 4 conferences make up over half of that. The SEC and Big 10 control the media slots and get the most tv money. A true playoff format would consist of 12 conferences and a 12 team playoff. The winner of each conference is in. If a 1 loss SEC team doesn't get in, then they should've won their conference. College football has basically become NFL light. Take the committees, the polls and the voting shyt out of it. It's like they want to evolve, but still have elements of how it use to be which makes no sense. Notre Dame shouldn't have it's own TV deal. They changed the transfer rules, but then change them again, because too many people was using it. They don't know what they want.