Everyone knows the playoff would be the way to go.
The ONLY thing holding it up is bowl weekend activities. These bowl organizations rake in millions by having these people travel to see their universities play near these resorts. Most of these people bring loads of cash and take vacations doing this. The entire bowl structure probably makes anywhere up to a billion dollars in revenue every year or two. Keep in mind rental cars hotels, and most of the 70,000 that fill these stadiums stays all week, buys dinners etc.
There is no way these cities through the bowl organizations are going to give this economic boom up. Think about it, they can literally get together and hand the NCAA $50-100 million and know they easily make the money back. The only possible scenario for a playoff will come when these bowls get close to losing money. Then if someone will guarantee the revenue, then they will cave in. The fact of the matter is most of these bowls work because people travel to see their team play ONCE. If you start asking them to travel twice and within a 1 week span, they will choose to go the 2nd week.
All that being said, I wish they would just have a playoff.........