Hopefully a bye for the top 4 conference champs would make it feel like the conf championship game is the real first round, overcoming some of the apprehension by school presidents that there would be too many games.

And since the remaining 8 teams are likely someone who didn't win their conference, or a G5 or independent team, they should just be happy to still have the chance that they could still obtain a national championship, that they wouldn't gripe about the extra 1st round game.

Then it really turns into an 8 team playoff after that first round, so just 1 more playoff game then the current method for those top 4 teams, but opens it up to a lot more teams.

The 12 teams should be the 5 conf champs from the P5 conferences, the top 2 G5 conf champs, and the remaining 5 are at large based on committee. That still puts emphasis on winning your conference, but also makes every game throughout the year matter as well, but makes it a lot more fair for everyone. Teams like UCF would have had a chance, as well as avoiding the controversy from a few years ago with TCU and Baylor.