or NCAA B-ball. The difference I see is that it in my opinion it is much harder for people to know who truly are the best 4 teams in the country to play in this playoff. In the NFL and basketball, there are way more teams making it much less likely that the best team would be left out.

I think it makes more sense to basically include the conference championships into the format of the national championship. If Alabama loses in the conference championship, then they are out - just like if any NFL team loses any of their playoff games, they are out. Alabama (or anyone else) shouldn't lose against a team, then get to re-play that team two games later. Think about it, even in the NFL, if you lose your conference championship game, you do not play in the Super bowl.

It is very unlikely that out of 64 teams in the NCAA tourney or the NFL system that you get a really good team that is left out for no other reason than the SEC is more popular than their conference.

Of course, I do think that having an 8 game playoff with the winner of each conference plus the next best 3 is the answer here.