And the playoffs went from 4 in 1967 to 8 in 1970, 10 in 1978, 12 in 1990. And then 14 in 2020 but that may have been just one year due to Covid.

FBS went from 11 to 12 permanently in about 2004. Conference championship games were added to almost every conference, always had bowls as a reward but back in the early 80's there were only 8 and today there are 35 bowl games meaning about 60% of all teams play an extra game. And now the CFP already has a bowl + 1 playoff.

I do not think most would care if regular season dropped by a game to make more space for a true accessible playoff.

24 teams like FCS. Allow for a small imbalance toward P5's if you must by doing the following...a P5 with 14+ schools and divisions gets their div champs into the playoffs and they personally eliminate their CCG. Go5 CCG winners are in. The rest are at-large included based on a ranking and/or committee.

Auto in

2 ACC
2 SEC
2 B1G
1 PAC so they have to play CCG weekend to get in or expand
1 B12 or expand

1 AAC
1 CUSA
1 MAC
1 MWC
1 SunBelt

13 auto bids as of now but my guess is PAC expands by 2 and B12 expands by 4 to not have to play CCG. If that expansion happens then it is 15 auto bids.

Current would have 11 at-large.
Expansion would still leave 9 at-large.

Top 8 have 1st round bye.

There is a lot I still do not like about this idea because I would prefer there to be more equality in FBS. That said I think something like this might get the P5's to buy in.

To offset profit loss from CCG no longer played there would need to be some higher payouts to P5's.

If by chance you are a Go5 and make it to the title game you play 11 regular season, CCG and 5 playoff games for a total of 17 games.

If you are a P5 in a division auto conf you play 11 regular season and not top 8 seed plays max 5 so 16 games. If you are a top 8 seed then you max 4 playoff games giving just 15 games.

Of 24 teams that make playoff only 12 will play more than 1 game in the playoff so even if they played a CCG they only get to 13 games. Which leaves only 12 teams total in FBS that will play more than 13 games.

Today 70+ teams play at least 13 games just by virtue of 12 regular season games and 35 bowl games to fill.

CCG participants almost always play in a bowl which means that 20 teams play 14 games right there. Hawaii always plays 13 regular season and often goes bowling as well. And 6 or 7 of Hawaii's opponents usually play a 13th regular season game as well.

So while you have an extreme outside chance of a couple teams getting to 17 in a season (requires 2 Go5 champs not top 8 seeds to make title game) most often it would likely end up being no team even getting to 15 (2 P5 teams auto division inclusion top 8 seed) which currently both title game participants are at 15.

So if it wasn't a power/money situation to keep others down there are many ways to have a real playoff and not cause more stress on the players bodies. But I also do not buy that argument for a moment as they will always expand as the money is there...