It takes about 30 seconds of critical thinking to figure that out.

Expanding the playoff was always a more likely outcome than going from a P5 to a P4 and having a conference champion-only CFP with just 4 teams. There are two key reasons for this.

1. It would require a conference breaking up and the individual members finding homes in one of the other four. Sound fun, until you get down to the details. First, which conference was going to be contracted, the ACC or the BigXII? And once the few good parts (Texas, Oklahoma, Clemson, FSU, UNC) of the contracted conference were gobbled up, which existing conference was taking the leftovers? The Pac12, the ACC, the SEC and the B1G might all love to have Texas, but they aren't particularly interested in taking on Baylor. And finding homes for Wake, BC, Duke, and the like may been an even greater sell. And there are in-state and national political and legal fights that would also arise--too many to discuss in this post. And in the end, there was no force big enough to create 4 evenly matched conferences. Sure, it's a fun pub game or message board fodder to carve up scenarios though.

2. A conference-champion-only playoff would kill OOC games. So unless schools are willing to play 12 conference games (which would be kinda refreshing actually), it couldn't happen. Why? Because if an OOC game has no effect on getting into the CFP, then these games would effectively become like NFL pre-season games. Meaningless. You need to have at least 1 at-large bid to give meaning to the OOC. And if there is 1 at-large bid, as you know @TerryD
and @goldendomer , Notre Dame will have access.

Which brings me to the point of the P4/conference champions only scheme. It was, in part, snake oil from desperate people wanting, for whatever reason, to force Notre Dame into a conference. It was also brought up by powers that want to freeze out the G5.

[Post edited by Maroon Baboon at 06/13/2021 4:24PM]