know them today. As things continue to evolve I see the power shifting away from the conferences and towards the schools; especially when it comes time to negotiate a new GoR. If the power schools want to form their own association, then they may not need the involvement of the current existing conferences. They may decide they only need 1 conference (aka NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS, MLB, MLL, etc) instead of multiple independent conferences.

The new association (or even new NCAA division level) will want to make it difficult for new members to be added to the association/division level. As a result they will want stability among the group. Conferences trying to add members from other conferences doesn't create stability until you get down to 1-2 conferences remaining. At that point collegiate athletics doesn't look any different than the pro leagues. Instead of using Eastern Conference/Western Conference, AFC/NFC, or AL/NL; the collegiate athletics could be using 2 collegiate conference names (pick any 2). Regardless what names are used for the 2 conferences, the conferences will be so large that they will need to be subdivided into multiple divisions for scheduling purposes. Most likely these divisions will be geographically based. Since the schools aren't changing their physical location, then the schools from the 5 power conferences can only end up in certain geographic regions.

North: ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC (UK and Mizzou)
South: ACC, Big 12, and SEC
East: ACC, Big 10, Big 12 (WVU), and SEC
West: Big 10 (Nebraska), Big 12, Pac 12, and SEC (TAMU)

If the group decides it doesn't want to go the conference/division route, then it could decide it wants more than 5 conferences to keep the numbers in each conference small and return to more regionalized conferences. Ultimately whatever road they decide to go down it will probably come down to whether the schools want to pool their resources or continue allowing the conferences to compete against each other.