While driving today the sports talk guys were making the point that the year end 4 team playoff has teams from the 5 big conferences......so at least 1 of the major conferences will be left out. That conference wont be happy about it and the missed $$$$$$$. They then noted that the conferences have different criteria, for instance the SEC only requires teams to play 8 conference games. Conversely the PAC 12 evidently requires 9 conference games. Some conferences have a championship, the PAC 12 doesnt, etc.

So the point they made was that with the massive money on the line that is tied to a conference team making the playoff it could very well be that the conferences would adopt standards such as only 8 conference games (which could help BYU if the PAC 12 played less conference games) or if they standardized all conferences with a championship game. (which could then help BYU if leagues have to have enough teams to do a championship) They said that the PAC 12 will be watching it very carefully and if they are at a disadvantage by playing 9 conference games they could quickly do away with that.

They didnt mention BYU but the point seemed to me that it offered 2 potentially positive options for BYU, and the thing that would be driving it would be the desire of the conferences to have similar standard to share the same money.