It seems like the extra games are only hurting the SEC for the playoffs. What if in season, there was a challenge event like done in basketball between the power 4 conferences? The SEC and presumably the other power 4 conferences move to 6 fixed conference games and 4 team pods. The winners of the pods play a 4 team tournament for the the conference title, the remaining conference teams play against each other in a flex game 7 with the higher ranked teams getting home field advantage. The other 5 games of the season would be 1 versus the Big 10, Big 12, and ACC and the other two would be whoever you want to schedule. Since there is a difference in 5 teams for matchup purposes, the top 5 group of 5 teams would be included in it. This seems like it would be a way to at least get a better idea of strength of conferences and require some of these teams to play tougher games.
