If conference championships are to be considered at all, then it should be a requirement to be conference champ to get into the National Champ playoff, whether it remains at 4 games or an 8 game play off.
If player safety and education is actually cared for (and we know the NCAA doesn't), but if they did, the regular season would be mandated at 10 games, which would cut out some of those goddamn cupcake homecoming games that the big teams like to schedule.
Then 1 game for conference championship, and an 8 game play off where the top two teams would end up playing a total of 14 games. Let 5 of the 8 spots be the conference Champ of the power 5, and the other 3 be "wild cards" (but also have to be conference champ).
Yea, in a conference where there are other strong teams that lose the conference game (or don't even get there like Alabama), you'd be sitting at home. Well, take care of business in the regular season then!
I hate to even have to guarantee 5 spots to the power 5, but I guess I can understand that the majority of interest and money is with teams in those conferences, and ultimately, this is about money and entertainment, not fairness.