My solution?An eight-team playoff.Sixteen might give it a March Madness feel in December and January and I’m sure I’d love it, because, eventually, a George Masonesque team like Boise State or Fresno State or Rutgers would reach the final four and, be honest, it would be cool.

I just don’t ever see it happening.

That many teams, playing that many games, really would put the bowl system at risk — I might be all for that, too, but the cash cow will not be slaughtered — and now we’re talking about a 16-game season for the finalists unless you can go back to 11-game regular seasons, which seems unlikely, because how much money is one more home game worth to a program like, say, Oklahoma, Michigan or Notre Dame.

So, in the spirit of presenting the doable rather than mountain moving, go with the eight.

If it were me, I’d give the champs of the Big 12, Big 10, SEC and Pac 10 automatic bids. The rest of the nation can fight it out for the remaining four, which would go to the top four teams, as determined by the computers and the polls (kind of like it is now) not already in the playoff and whose conference isn’t already represented.

If No. 1 loses its conference championship, tough.

Why no automatic bids for the Big East or the ACC? Well, frankly, because I’m not so sure those conferences are any better than Conference USA, the WAC, the MAC or the Mountain West year in and year out.

The biggest problem?

Notre Dame might make it every season.

To miss out, the Irish would have to be No. 5 (or lower) once the Big 12, Big 10, SEC and Pac 10 were taken off the board. And that’s quite a fall for Touchdown Jesus.

The best thing about it?

Winning your conference really counts and, with no more than one team from each conference, at least one team from somewhere off the beaten path will be among the eight every season.

Install it this year and you’d have Oklahoma, Ohio State, Florida and Southern Cal (you would not have Michigan, LSU or Wisconsin). You would also have Louisville, Boise State, Notre Dame and Wake Forest.

And who would be furious, I mean, other than Michigan, LSU and Wisconsin? Maybe nobody.

Because here are the conference champions not in the playoff: Houston, BYU, Troy and Central Michigan. And frankly, I just don’t see the Cougars, the Cougars, the Trojans or the Chippewas doing much complaining.