I could see this being played out two ways:
1) Scrap the BCS altogether and return the four major bowls to their conference affiliations:
Rose: Pac 10 vs Big 11
Orange: A.C.C. vs Big East
Sugar: S.E.C. vs wild card
Fiesta: Big XII vs wild card
The Sugar and the Fiesta committees would choose the two wild cards. After the bowls have finished, take the consensus first and second teams from the human polls and have your ‘plus one’ for the National Championship.
2) Skip the ‘plus one’ format and go straight to a playoff that incorporates at least three of the major bowls. My favorite plan is to require the playoff to include *only* conference champions (plus Notre Dame if qualified) ranked by the BCS standings. The top 8 conference champs - regardless of which conference - make the playoffs. The first round would be at the higher seed’s home field while the semi-finals and finals would be attached to the major bowls.
Had this formula been used in 2006, the field would have been:
8) 14th-ranked Wake Forest at 1) 1st-ranked Ohio State
7) 11th-ranked Notre Dame at 2) 2nd-ranked Florida
6) 10th-ranked Oklahoma at 3) 5th-ranked USC
5) 8th-ranked Boise St. at 4) 6th-ranked Louisville
Michigan (3rd), LSU (4th), Wisconsin (7th), Auburn (9th), Arkansas (12th) and West Virginia (13th) are passed over because they did not win their conference title - making winning the conference a necessary step towards winning it all.
Notre Dame is the exception. Not belonging to a conference, they would only need to finish higher ranked than the next highest conference champ would have been (in this case, 20th-ranked BYU).
The good news for this format is that there is no “second team” from any conference so the politicking can be minimized. Also, at least one mid-major conference will always be represented and sometimes as many as three. There are no automatic bids so if a conference (say, the Big East) has a bad year, another conference could take their place.
The first round games could be held two weeks before New Years, the second round around New Years and the final game two weeks after New Years, likely the same weekend as the NFL conference championship games.
Or, if the NFL wants to keep a week between the Conf. title games and the Super Bowl, just schedule the college title game that weekend.