Quote Originally Posted by 133193Hokie View Post
The idea behind all of this conference shuffle is to maximize revenue for the schools within the "big" conferences. As mentioned many times on this board, the schools and the major conferences are going to take more control (and more $s) from others in the process - ie. bidding out playoff games, eliminating traditional bowl committees, striking new distribution (like the BTN) models for their content. This is just the beginning and the gap between the haves and have nots will grow - you just want to make sure that you are one of the haves schools.
The playoffs will either be the 4 top conference champions or the top 3 rated conference champions and any non-champion rated in the top 4 (SEC's choice). That would almost leave the ACC and BEFC out every year as we have all talked about for a month now. I can't see the HAVES including the likes of Washington State, Colorado, Utah, Kansas, Iowa State, Baylor, Northwestern, Indiana, Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Mississippi State,.. and not including the HAVE NOTS such as Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, Boise State, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, UNC, NC State, UVa, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Louisville, Cincinnati, USF, Houston, Southern Miss, ...

If/when the day comes that the ACC and several of the other traditional football powers are locked out of the playoff mix, there will be law suits and politicians involved. I can't see the new playoff system leaving out an entire region of the nation (North Carolina to New England) without things getting messy. You would have politicians representing every senatorial and congressional district of each of the left out universities yelling bloody murder. It would be a PR disaster for the NCAA and BCS (or whatever group runs the playoffs). In the end, the ACC and probably the BEFC would still get a seat at the table and/or receive equal (or close to equal) revenue sharing from the playoff system, even if their conference didn't make the top 4.