1) Re-create the Big East with all the top FB schools in that region: Army, Navy, Boston College, Syracuse, Connecticut, Rutgers, Penn State, Pittsburgh and West Virginia and stick Notre Dame in there for the NYC connection and the service schools. Throw in Cincinnati and Louisville to make it 12.
2) Re-create the old Big 8
3) Re-create the old Southwestern Conference
4) Re-untie the WAC and the Mountain West.
5) You can have divisions and a playoff with 10 teams.
Now you've got four conferences that would have all the schools capable of fielding a national championship contender in eight conferences, (the ACC, the SEC, the Big 10 and the Pac10 being the others), with each one representing a specific area of the country. Then you have the 8 conference champions. Have those 8 teams playoff for the national championship.
For a million reasons we'll never get that and will have to settle for something not as good.