Pigs are sprouting wings in Kansas City, Missouri — they’ll be flying in no time. Lucifer was caught by paparazzi at a Chicago-land REI store getting fitted for a parka and snowshoes.

Change is not a descriptive word used often to describe the Texas Longhorns or Division 1-A college football as a whole; aka the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS); aka one of the chosen few sports franchises in the world granted the right to simply print money whenever they need a little more of it.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you haven’t had time to tie together all that happened in college football late last week, so here’s a quick primer — beware, this will sound insane and totally made up, I swear it’s not.

Consider: The highest level of college football, the FBS, is still the only NCAA sport whose champion is not decided by the NCAA. It’s been that way since 1902 when Michigan and Stanford played a post-season East vs. West game in Pasadena, California. The NCAA basketball tournament, the College World Series, the other three college football division championships and dozens of other college sports are all run by the NCAA and decided using a playoff system.

The FBS has the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). Privately run by the very conferences that play in it, for their own mutual benefit, it may be a moneymaking machine, but to be charitable, it’s not the best way to pick a champion.

Further consider: The Big 12 conference nearly self-destructed last year, based upon the Longhorns reticence in giving up one of the richest TV deals in college sports.

As Lucifer packs his parka for hell, all of that is likely to change and fast, as in within a couple weeks. And those changes will alter the landscape of college football as we know it — for the better.

Last week, the Big 12 Conference annual meetings took place in Kansas City. This year — after a tumultuous 2011 season that saw Nebraska, Missouri and Texas A&M bolt from the Big 12, following Colorado (in 2010); and then the addition of TCU and West Virginia to the conference family — the talk involved nothing less than the reinvention of college football.

And the sports world turned on its axis.

A college football playoff

The Big 12 endorsed a college football playoff system. Read that again… seriously… a college football playoff.

Four teams, chosen either as conference champions, or by ranking, or both, will create a Final Four of college football and play for a championship berth. The playoff would involve new post-season games, not recycled bowl games and it would live outside of the current bowl structure.

In fact, the 11 FBS football conferences and Notre Dame (keep Notre Dame in mind for a moment) will meet in Chicago over the next couple weeks and then later this month will testify before Congress laying out a playoff plan. (Note: You have to testify before Congress when you have a monopoly and print your own money.)

The most likely scenario is to have the three top-ranked conference champions + one top ranked wild card team get into the Football Final Four.

An impartial committee, much like the NCAA basketball tournament and College World Series, would choose the teams. It’s fair, it’s impartial, and it would be totally awesome to have three more postseason games that actually mean something.

Texas TV rights

In the Big 12, the Texas Longhorns, one of the richest college athletics programs in the world, announced they would share their TV rights ($$) with their conference brethren.

NOT, the Longhorn Network mind you, things are not THAT crazy, but their other so-called Tier 2 rights will be shared.

Frankly, Texas has two really good reasons to do this. First, they must in order to keep the fragile conference together, and second, they’ll probably make even more money this way. By the end of summer the Big 12 will sign off on over $2.5 billion from FOX and ESPN. That’s money every team would have an equal share of, and even Texas can’t ignore it.

Expansion?

A couple stories that otherwise would have become headlines last week, became sidebars in all the tumult.

The Big 12 athletic directors all seem to be happy with the current 10-team Big 12. 10 teams allows for a round-robin season with no BCS killing conference championship game. So, no expansion is planned — unless your University happens to be called Notre Dame in which case the phone lines are open.

Notre Dame is a game-changer for any conference — they have cash and a huge, loyal alumni group that travels to games. ND brings class, charisma, and credibility. The Big 12 will take that call.

A powerful alliance

And, in a case of strange bedfellows, the Big 12 and its archenemy the Southeastern Conference (SEC) have agreed to a new Bowl game pitting their champions against each other starting in 2014. They’re calling it the Champions Bowl, or at least it’ll be called that until some goliath corporation steps up with a check containing lots of zeros and decides what it will be called. It will be an immediate glamour game held on New Year's Day following the Rose Bowl. Lots of people will watch and lots of money will be made.

The SEC is only now an archenemy only due to it’s embrace of Texas A&M and Missouri after they cut and ran from the Big 12.

So the Longhorns might actually meet the Aggies on the Champions Bowl gridiron in the future? Ha! With the Aggies playing the likes of Alabama, Auburn, LSU, and Florida, I’ll bet hell freezes over first, or we see pigs fly… oh, wait, there goes one now.