[Big Blue 09]

They take the top 2 from each confrence. There are also a number of independent and at large spots held for teams not in a conference and/or someone that is lower in their conference. It is a little more complex for D2/D3 schools in that they can get in if they are the top finish as the top D2/D3 team in their conference.

As far as letting 3rd or 4th place teams in you have to look at the confrence. Now this is a stretch a bit but I think it fits. The 3rd or 4th place team in the SEC is sometimes better than the 1st and 2nd place team in another conference. You have the same thing with these MS football conferences.

If you think the playoffs are watered down you have not watched any of these MS playoff games. Past a game or two they typically are extremely close and hard fought games.

You are right about the strength of the conference. I have watched several MS playoff games and they are very good.
I guess it is a good idea to let other teams in the playoffs just in case they had 1 bad game in their conference playoff game. I know of 1 team that didnt even make the conference semi-final game or didnt even have a good year and they got into the palyoffs, of course they got beat first round. So that kind of worked it self out.