I like the idea. I think it would help ND by minimizing the

chances of chicanery knocking ND out in favor of a conference champion. To put it another way, in most seasons I believe we would be deserving of a playoff spot at 11-1, but we would almost always get knocked out in the current system by a 1-loss conference champion. Expanding it to 8 would eliminate that problem because then we would be compared -- at worst -- to a conference runner-up.

I also think it's a natural progression to eliminating conference championship games in favor of an additional round of playoffs. Wouldn't add any additional games in the overall, overall either (although of course it would add a game for us if we reached the finals).