The FBS Playoff Committee flat-out told the Big 12 it was penalized for not having a conference championship game, and how the league reacts to that message could have profound impact on Louisville's future football schedules.

The Big 12 will possibly pursue a change to NCAA rules that would allow it to stage a conference title game without sponsoring 12 football teams in its conference, and without splitting into two divisions. ACC commissioner John Swofford has asked for those precise rule changes, which would allow the ACC to simply send the two top teams in its conference to the ACC football championship game, and possibly even scrap its oft-criticized two-division format.

The Big 12 got left out of the first 4-team FBS Playoff because Ohio State's performance in the Big ten title game allowed it to leapfrog TCU and Baylor for the final spot. Title games count more than an extra conference game, period. Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby took it on the chin for refusing to field a conference title game and said the conference would make changes. Bowlsby said the playoff snub "will cause us to go back to the drawing board a little bit and think about if we need a different model."

Now, to field a conference title game, the NCAA requires that a conference field at least 12 teams in football in at least two divisions. There's simply no way the Big 12 can add two teams in time for the 2015 season, not least because schedules could not be altered in time, nor could television deals be negotiated. Also, short of BYU, there aren't really any compelling available teams in the Big 12 geographic footprint that would up the value of the Big 12 television contract enough that adding them wouldn't actually cost the league members money.

Last year, most Big 12 teams earned about $23 million in TV revenue brokered by the conference. Though the Big 12 does use a complex sliding revenue scale that doesn't guarantee each team an equal share of revenue, but the fact remains that the two new teams would need to up the annual value of Big 12's TV package by at least $50 million, and there aren't a pair of available teams capable of reaching that number.

That leaves two available options: Force a change to an eight-team playoff where even penalized Big 12 champions make the playoff field, or change the NCAA rules regarding conference football title games.

While there is certainly clamoring for an eight-team playoff already, that change isn't likely in the next two to three football seasons. And even if the playoff field is expanded, it's likely that Big 12 teams would be perennially seeded lower than other playoff teams who can burnish their records with conference title game wins.

That leaves a rule change for conference title games, and Bowslby would have a staunch ally in John Swofford if he pursued that tactic. Swofford has not outright argues for a scrapping of divisions in the ACC -- largely as a concession to coaches who want as little schedule turnover year-to-year as possible -- but many outside observers expect the ACC to adopt a so-called "3-5" scheduling system if the NCAA title game rules are altered to allow it.

Under a "3-5" scheme, each ACC team would have three "permanent" rivals on its football schedule, which they would play every year. The remaining 10 teams in the league would rotate through on a four-year cycle, with each school playing five teams home and away over a two-year span, then playing the other five teams home and way over a two-year span. Thus, every ACC team would visit every other ACC once ever four years, if not sooner.

If the Big 12 takes the most expedient route to staging a conference title game, Louisville's schedules could look very different in the near future. For reference, UofLgrad07 put together a likely format for an ACC 3-5 schedule based on existing ACC annual rivalries that the conference members (and ESPN) would seek to preserve.

School Rival #1 Rival #2 Rival #3 Boston College Miami Pittsburgh Syracuse Clemson Florida State Georgia Tech NC State Duke North Carolina Virginia Wake Forest Florida St Clemson Georgia Tech Miami Georgia Tech Clemson Florida St Wake Forest Louisville Pittsburgh Syracuse Virginia Tech Miami Boston College Florida State Virginia Tech North Carolina Duke NC State Virginia NC State Clemson North Carolina Wake Forest Pittsburgh Boston College Louisville Syracuse Syracuse Boston College Pittsburgh Louisville Virginia Duke North Carolina Virginia Tech Virginia Tech Louisville Miami Virginia Wake Forest Duke Georgia Tech NC State

Frankly, that looks a lot better than playing Virginia every year and Miami once per decade.