The Bowl Alliance, BCS, and current CFP are all designed with the intent of giving increased access to the haves and plausible reasons for excluding the have-nots.

In 1984, the stars alligned for BYU. Consider all the factors that led to BYU being (controversially) voted champion that season:

• Sustained dominance
  • BYU had won the WAC for 8 years in a row, had gone to the Holiday Bowl 6 years in a row, and ended the 1983 season on an 11-win streak, finishing the year ranked #7
• A pipeline of star QBs
  • BYU's prior QBs were Jim McMahon and Steve Young - both of whom had outstanding college careers and great professional careers. Those two were arguably the best to play QB at BYU, and it is clear that BYU never has never experienced that kind of star QB succession before or since
• Early wins against good teams
  • BYU knocked off #3 Pitt in a very high-profile game to start the year and then crushed Baylor the following week (Baylor was a bowl team in 1983). These wins propelled BYU into the top-10 at the beginning of the season and allowed BYU to benefit from gradual attrition within the top-10
• Surprise, late-season losses by Nebraska and South Carolina
  • With just two weeks to go in the regular season, #1 Nebraska took their second loss of the year (to #6 OU) and #2 South Carolina lost to 3-win Navy. This cleared the path for BYU (then ranked #3 at the time) to ascend to #1
• Undefeated regular season
  • BYU was the only team that year to run the table - which, as we saw this year, is an extremely difficult task with little margin for error (even when the schedule is no harder than AAC and Sunbelt teams)
• The exclusion of the SEC Champion
  • #3 Florida beat #12 FSU during the last week of the regular season; however, due to recruiting violations, the Gators (SEC champions) were excluded from the postseason and disfavored from national championship consideration
• No conference championship games
  • If conference championship games had existed in 1984, multiple top-10 matchups would have taken place. It's unlikely that BYU would have been able to maintain its #1 ranking sitting idle (as an independent) or playing a WAC team in the WAC championship
• Surprise bowl loss by #2 Oklahoma
  • Oklahoma had knocked off #1 Nebraska during the regular season and had the best bowl matchup that year (against #4 Washington). Everything was set up for the Sooners to beat the #4 team and pass BYU in the final standings, but they inexplicably lost to Washington and there was no clear #1 choice - #2 Oklahoma had 2 losses, #3 Florida was ineligible, and #4 Washington (although dominant) wasn't even the Pac-10 Champion

Even after all that, it was still somewhat controversial for BYU to be named the national champion. Do you see any possible way for the stars to allign the same way for a G5 team in the future?