12 game regular season + conference championship games.

4 highest ranked conference champs play an additional game the following week at the two highest ranked team's stadiums.

Winners advance to championship game.

The losers of those two games go into the pool of bowl-eligible teams.

Championship game rotates between the 4 major bowls: Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Orange each year.

In the 3 years between championship games in Pasadena, the Rose takes the champion of Pac-12 and B1G or the second place team if either of the conf-champ makes it to the title game.

Every 4th year, the Pac-12 and B1G keep their fingers crossed that their champs advance to the title game in Pasadena so it can be a "traditional" Rose Bowl. But if they don't, oh well, we've seen TCU and Texas play in recent Rose Bowls.

This is about as good as we can hope for if the bowls are going to co-exist with a playoff.