Let's be honest.
If a group that represents many schools from across the spectrum is looking at a 16 team playoff and how playoff football will solve the revenue issues for everyone, surely major realignment will follow to help put all of college football into a format that can be marketed, not only to fans of schools, but to a larger audience.

In order to accomplish these goals, several things must happen.
1) create a league where those that don't want to compete, or can't compete at the highest level mostly for academic reasons can participate among themselves. Pay them a lesser amount, give them access to TV exposure, and make accommodations for them to continue to play rivalry games against old foes. The re-birth of the 'Magnolia'.
2)completely realign everybody into equally sized, somewhat equally talented, regional conferences (four), designed for playoff football. There is major shifting to accomplish these goals, but remember this alignment was manufactured for playoff football and to promote regional identity to get a greater audience involved.

4 X 15
Boston College, Wake Forest, Duke, Vanderbilt and Northwestern all move into a 'Magnolia'. To fill out this conference, add in the schools from the original idea (SMU and Tulane, Rice) and offer Army and Navy an opportunity to participate.

ACC
Syracuse, Penn State, Rutgers, Pitt, West Virginia
Maryland, UVa, Virginia Tech, NC State, Carolina
Clemson, South Carolina, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami

B1G
Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Purdue, Indiana
Ohio State, Kentucky, Louisville, Illinois, Wisconsin
Minnesota, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas State, Missouri

PAC
Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, California
Stanford, UCLA, Southern Cal, Arizona, Arizona State
Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma

SEC
Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Alabama
Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, LSU, Texas A&M
Texas, Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State