It is time for the "New and Improved" version of College Football. This season, and for the forseeable future, there will be a playoff featuring the alleged Top 4 Teams in the nation. There will also be 6 major bowl games, with the Cotton Bowl and Chick-fil-a-Peach Bowl joining the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowl as hosts of the two semi-final games on a rotating basis. In 2014-15 the Rose and Sugar do the hosting. In 2015-16, the Orange and Cotton Bowl do the hosting, and in 2016-17, it is the Fiesta and Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl doing the hosting.

These Bowl games will be played on December 31st, (Orange, Chick-fil-a, and Fiesta) and January 1st, (Rose, Cotton and Sugar). The championship games will be held in Arlington Teas in 2015, Glendale Arizona in 2016, and Tampa Bay Florida in 2017.

There are several tie-ins for the Bowls if they are NOT hosting one of the Semi-final games. The Rose has the Big 10 and Pac 12. The Sugar has the Big 12 and SEC. The Orange has the ACC and a formula that includes the SEC, Big 10, and Notre Dame. The Fiesta, Cotton, and Chick-fil-a have no tie ins. There are 5 Conferences that comprise the "Power 5". They are the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12, and the SEC. The rest are consindered the "Non-Power" Conferences and include the American, CUSA, MAC, MWC, and Sun Belt Conferences. These Conferences will have the highest ranking team go to one of the 4 non-Semi Final Major Bowl Games.

A Selection Committee of 13 members will determine which 4 teams go to the two Semi-Final Bowl Games. They will Seed these teams 1-4 with #1 playing #4 and #2 playing #3. The seeding is not that important because of the locations of the games, however you may see a Big 10 team seeded either #2 or 3 and a Pac 12 team taking the other seeding so they could play in the Rose Bowl, which normally hosts a game Between the Big 10 and Pac 12. The Selection Commitee will make it's selections based on record, conference standings, and strength of schedule. The SOS figures to be the big unknown in here and can hurt teams as well as help them. There is no limit as to how many teams from each conference can play in the semi's or whether that team is their conference champion or not. This is totally subjective.

Several conferences are gaining and losing teams, but I will stick to the "Power" conferences, which see only two changes. The Big 10 takes Rutgers from the American Conference, and Maryland from the ACC. The ACC takes Louisville from the American Conference to fill in the gap left by Marylands defection to the Big 10. This leaves three Power Conferences with 14 teams (ACC, Big 10 and SEC), the Pac 12 with 12 teams, and the Big 12 with only 10. Because of the Big 12 having only 10 teams, there is no "Conference Championship" game played in the Big 12. Many people think that this will hurt the Big 12 because of the new SOS factor.

Net up: A look at some of the projected top teams in 2014 and how the SOS may factor into their chances of making the Top 4 and the Semi-finals.