I BROADLY AGREE that merit is the way to go.
And since CONFERENCES EXIST a system of SUBDIVIDING PERFORMANCE is already in place, i.e. a means by which MERIT CAN BE MEASURED. Plus, conferences are part of the LORE OF THE GAME, even though they've been RECONSTRUCTED rather SLOPPILY.
The trouble is, it's impossible to create out of conferences as they now exist the kind of COHESIVE and EQUITABLE scheduling that exists in virtually all PROFESSIONAL SPORTS. There's neither enough PARITY within CFB conferences as respects scheduling nor, more glaringly, AMONG CONFERENCES. So, we get the kind of mismatches in these early playoff rounds that we're watching.
But whilie I'm for maintaining conferences, I'm also for realigning them MORE EQUITABLY. And that might include dividing them into STANDARD AND PREMIUM DIVISIONS where LIKES COMPETE AGAINST LIKES on a regular basis.
The trouble with disbanding them and merely 'SELECTING' the best 12 or 16 teams is that no matter how much that process may be QUANTIFIED, the SUBJECTIVE ELEMENT remains at the heart of it which -- as you've pointed out -- leads back to the very thing that playoffs are meant to abolish -- the concept of a MYTHICAL CHAMPION.
