The super conference breakaway idea isn't such a long shot. I have personally heard mumbling about it for years and from what I understand talk about it has gone on for much longer. A big part of the problem is the sheer number of conferences, the more parties involved the tougher the sell becomes and the more likely you are to defeat the purpose by dragging along a lot of dead weight.
Really, the fight right now is between super conferences and a playoff movement. A playoff moment gets a lot of support from conferences like the WAC and MWC but also is enticing to some smaller conferences that love the idea of a automatic playoff bid. The hope now for this to work is that nothing earth shattering happens with the Big-10, but rather we see a relatively stable move to 12 teams. Once that happens, the push will be for Pac-10 to go to 12 as well. The Big East and MWC could be fighting it out for automatic BCS berths (and Notre Dame might end up with their special treatment in jeopardy) and that could lead to a 6th 12 team BCS conference.
Once you have that, the landscape clears up a lot. The 12 team BCS conferences (let's say the Big East, ACC, Big 12, Big 10, SEC and Pac-10) would really be distanced from what's left and the foundation is there for a breakaway. I think their outlook would become much more similar and under that scenario a playoff would be fairly easy (6 automatics and 2 at large) without letting the NCAA come in and give away the money those parties earned. Likewise, there could be a final round of expansion to 4, 16 team conferences and anyone that didn't want to step away from the NCAA stick with them and be awarded a role of prominence.
The main obstacle I see in any breakaway from the NCAA is a inequitable distribution amongst the conferences. For instance, if the SEC was to go to 16 and took Texas and OU, suddenly they'd have 9 of the top 20 teams. If the Big 10 was able to secure Nebraska and for the sake of argument, Notre Dame... then there would be very little of value another conference could bring to the table. In fact, in the long run the Big 10 and SEC would isolate themselves via this strategy because a breakaway would require most of the programs to be on board with the plan... If they went that route, expect the NCAA to move forward to a playoff full of automatic bids that really punishes the Big 10 and SEC for having such a talent laden conference, because the other conferences wouldn't bother to give them cover... they'd just be glad those conferences already eliminated a lot of the top teams.
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