There are 10 conferences starting in 2024, What format would you suggest to make a legitimate national champion?
I'll start by saying the ACC, American, Big 12, Big Ten, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West, SEC and Sun Belt are the conferences next year. The Power 4 Conferences (ACC, Big 12, Big 10, and SEC) would each get two teams to be determined by their league. The other conferences (American, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt would each get one. They can send a regular season champion or they can send a championship game champion winner. The conference would make that choice. That 8+5 would be 13 teams. Three more teams, by the vote of a committee consisting of one representative from each conference would be allowed in the playoffs with the following Caveat: No more than three teams from any one conference can be in the playoff tournament. An independent team only makes the tournament if they are selected by the committee (in other word, join a conference for football).
Rounds of 16, 8, 4 and the Championship Game would be played on consecutive weekends. That could take up 15 Bowl Games making it more meaningful to make a Bowl game for all the teams in Division 1 because there would be less available games.
In this system the teams would be seeded 1-16 and the tournament would be: 1-16, 2-15, 3-14, and so on.
I think this is "ALL-INCLUSIVE". Having more than 16 would take too long. Having less than 16 means someone gets a bye. The only thing I don't like about it is that there are still 3 teams selected by a committee.