The playoff system that goes along with the JF Power Index takes the conference champs of the top 8 ranked conferences and automatically puts them into the playoffs. The remaining 8 come from the highest ranked teams that were not conference champs from the JF Power Index. So, unlike how it is with the BCS, conference rankings matter. A lot.
** Since Independents don’t have an actual conference champion, a team can’t get an automatic bid to the playoffs. Of course, an individual team can make it to the playoffs, but not because of how they fair in “conference” play.
