I doubt that I'll make it to that game. As for our likelihood of success that day...

There's no equal access under the four-team format. Even if a G5 team were to schedule four OOC heavyweights (an impossibility in the real world) and go unbeaten, they'll never be a top-four team at the end of the regular season. The conference schedule will always drag them down in the minds of the committee. Top 10 is the best a G5 school can hope for. Let's face it, the committee is loaded with "P"5 alumni who are completely biased in favor of their conferences. And this year showed that "body of work" is irrelevant in their eyes. Just like all the other polls, its "what've you done lately?" BYU may have the best chance because as an independent they don't have to worry about a weak conference schedule. But they don't have the benefit of a conference championship game, either, which seemed to have mattered this season.

It isn't that hard to schedule major P5 opponents, unless you're going to demand home and homes. Look at Bowling Green's schedule next year - Memphis, Purdue, Tennessee and Maryland. They have Maryland scheduled to play in their stadium in 2018, and just hosted Indiana this season. If it takes a 2 for 1 to get a P5 in your house, do it.

The '08 Utah team was probably the best non-AQ team in the BCS era, but even their schedule wasn't great. I contend that if a G5 played 4 ranked P5 teams and won them all, then ran the table in conference that they'd be right in the conversation. The harsh reality is it's extremely rare for a G5 team to be good enough to be a top 4 squad, because that scenario is a near impossibility.

If BG runs the table next year, do you think they play for the national championship?

I don't. So I don't believe the NCAA should state all teams have "EQUAL ACCESS" to the playoffs. They don't.

Excellent analogy to make the point. I would add "NFC players and coaches paid substantially more than AFC players".

I would give the Power 5 conferences more credit if they simply admitted they don't respect the other programs, they don't want to share their money and they just want to create an 8 or 16 team playoff that makes billions of dollars. I can handle greed, if it's open and honest greed. I can accept or avoid it. I don't like wholesale greed operating under the auspices of amateurism.

I want to see the Power 5 teams have to play each other all 12 games. Big-time programs going 7-5. No 60-point wins that serve as bye weeks and excuses to print money in places like Columbus, Baton Rouge, Tuscaloosa and Eugene. Pre-ordained routs disguised as games. College football will be wildly popular in the short-term, even more than it is. But it will become professional football played at a lower caliber. I think the product deteriorates over time if the smaller conferences just walk out of the room. Three-loss national champions will be the norm. I'm not sure people will like that.

College football will always make money, but I think people at big programs like being the bully. I think it pleases their fans to go 11-1, even if five wins came against inferior competition. That seems boring to me, but I think it's integral to the sport's popularity.

I'd like to see the small guys blow it up in some way.

With those four teams? Not a chance. If it's Bama, LSU, and FSU like Maryland Bobcat suggested, then they'd be right in the running. 3 (or 4) road Ws against top tier programs on the resume would be more impressive than anything anybody did this season, even if Ws over EMU and Akron rounded out the schedule.

Be honest. How many G5 teams in the last 20 years were worthy of being considered top 4? Two? Three, at most?

My original post to start this topic was based on this same thought process. I would like to see the small guys blow it up but I think that ship has sailed. If that is the case then I would like to see the P5 teams battle it out among themselves. That is how I came up with the idea of a 12 game season that would require 15 or 16 games to win the championship games. The top 4 teams would only need to play 15--same as now. I guess this is one area where I do not have rose colored glasses. I think college football at the P5 level is well on its way to a lower tiered professional sport.

You mean those years Boise did that, did everything in their power, and still weren't seriously considered for the national championship even after winning a few marquee bowls in prior years to further prove their worth? There is absolutely positively NOT "equal access."

This should not be this hard. Require each team to belong to a conference, require each conference to have at least 12 teams and a conference championship. At the end, we have a tournament of conference champions. Every team controls their own destiny, no team can whine if they fail to win their own conference, and we burn the rankings system that is no better than figure skating judges to the ground.

(but we would need rankings for seedings, which would award byes for the top 6 (effectively the power 5 and best non-power))

No it won't happen, because they would refuse to give smaller conferences an auto bid. In that case, I think I'd prefer they just break the power 5 off, break up the Big 12 into the other 4 and make it 4 mega conferences who have a tournament of conference champions....then the rest of us can do something similar for a different championship. I don't care how unlikely it is...The current set up of being considered in the same division with absolutely no chance at the championship is fundamentally flawed and goes against the very basic necessities of sports.

how is worthiness decided and who gets to decide it?

That's a good counterpoint, OCF. Do we know if there were any rankings of those teams in how close they were to the Fiesta Bowl? I don't think that exists. That's what I don't like about this -- there doesn't seem to be any numbers involved like with the BCS standings. It all seems to be done by the people behind the curtain and teams have no way of knowing how close or what they need to do to qualify for certain slots.