With the advent of the 4+1, plus keeping the bowls, the fact that media market grabs (judging by today's debacle) obviously don't equal increased TV revenue ... I think we should have some major players and regional conferences in the pecking order and I see the future looking like this...

(All leagues must host CCG = at least have 12 members, preferably 14, with two 7 team divisions ...)

And the pecking order will go like this ...

1a-SEC
1b-B1G
2a-PAC-12/14
2b-Big 12/14
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3-ACC
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4a-New East-central based league with high-mid-majors
4b-New West-central based league with high-mid-majors
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5, 6, 7, 8 - MAC, SunBelt, CUSA, MWC

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The 5-8's will never have a schedule good enough to make it into the top 4, but will play for conference championships and bowl games. They'll play a ton of mid-week games to get on TV.

The 4 category will do some inter-league scheduling (alliance-like) but will be 2 seperate leagues, and will consist of leftover BE teams that don't get called up, current upper tier CUSA and MWC teams. They would have a very long shot at the top 4, but could get there if they play a brutal OOC schedule and win all of their games. They'll have some semi-top bowl tie-ins and will play a full slate of Thursday, Friday, Saturday games maximizing ESPNU, Fox, NBCS, etc. Name teams that people know like Boise, Fresno, Hawaii, UNLV, New Mexico, Southern Miss, East Carolina, Marshall, UMass, Temple, Army, Navy, Air Force, UCF, Memphis, USF, Cincinnati (possible if they don't make it into the B12 or ACC), etc. will adorn these leagues.

Cat 3 (aka, the ACC after losing it's best FB teams) will be closer to 4 in some years, and have an easier shot at moving closer to the 1-2 category if they play up their OOC schedule. It's above the 2 new leagues in the 4 category, but only by a hair in the talent level, but probably much higher in the money level (endowment, donations, TV contract slightly higher)

Cat 2 and 1 are essentially interchangable depending on the year. The SEC is not likely to fall from the top spot, but stranger things have happened. They will have the easiest path to the top 4 playoff, only because their conference slate will give them a high SOS. The NC will probably come from one of these conferences every year.

We can all argue over who goes where (which is just too hard at this point, I've given up long ago on those predictions ... if my old sig pic is still up, ignore it obviously), but I think this pecking order will eventually happen.