To the victors, go the spoils -- Promotion & Relegation details

The main concept of this suggestion is meritocracy. If you are successful, you deserve the breaks & opportunities. So here's how the conferences are tied together, and how teams move between them.

All standing and placing are for conference/tier (for simplicity's sake, let's just call each 10-team group a conference) games only. Each team will play the other 9 teams in its conference (everybody plays everybody in a conference -- how novel! Consequently, there are no conference championship games. See, this is already making tons of sense). Standings will be based only on these games -- more on scheduling later.

Promotion and relegation will be determined by league standing.

For the "BCS" leagues, or first tier (remember, 10 teams per league):

• Teams placing 1-8 are safe; they'll stay in the conference.
• The last place team is relegated to its conference partner (SEC to Conference USA, for example).
• 9th place: more on them later.

For the "non-BCS" leagues, or 2nd tier:

• Conference champion gets promoted to the BCS league, or 1st tier.
• 2nd place team will play against the 9th place team from 1st tier in a playoff; winner goes (or stays) in the 1st tier.
• 3rd through 10th place teams will remain in 2nd tier.

The playoff to determine 1st or 2nd tier membership will be played in lieu of a conference championship game.

There we have it. The best teams end up in the best conferences. Obviously this changes year-to-year, but the opportunity is there for every program to build itself into a major player. And if you suck out loud year after year, well, maybe you should be playing teams a little closer to your aptitude.

TIEBREAKER:

This is probably as good a time as any to talk about the tiebreaker. Again, only conference standings will count in all standings and inclusion scenarios. This is negotiable; merely my logical suggestion. Once a team is eliminated via one of the means, the remaining tied teams will start at #1.

1. Head-to-head record among tied teams
2. Point differential in all conference games
3. Point differential in all games among tied teams

That ought to do it; I don't know how teams could possibly still be tied after this, even last year's Oklahoma/Texas/Texas Tech CF. And since everybody plays everybody else in conference play, it's even equitable.