The flaw in this entire process is the overweighting of the low level OOC games by the SEC and B12. If an entire conference plays no one OOC and all the teams go 4-0 or 3-1 of course their conference games will then be weighted more later on.
It would be nice of them to state the purpose of the committee. Is it to find who they think are the best teams or is it to determine the champion, because those are two different things.
If you lose a game you can't be the champion if there are other teams that are undefeated. We know you can be beat, we don't yet know that about the undefeateds.
Are you your conference champion? If not, how can you be the nation champion as clearly there is someone in the conference who already beat you over the course of the season.
SoS and strength of record should only come into play to break ties.
The standings right now should be:
Clemson
Oklahoma State
Ohio State
Iowa
Baylor
Houston
Alabama
Notre Dame
LSU
Michigan State
I agree with most of what you wrote.
It's telling that undefeated Oklahoma State and Baylor are both behind TWO 1-loss teams.
Alabama OOC is Wisconsin, MTSU, La-Monroe, and Charleston Southern. Not exactly murderer's row. They have pedestrian wins over Arkansas and Tennessee and the loss to Ole Miss doesn't look as good now that they have lost 3 games. They close their year with Miss St, Auburn and a cupcake. Neither SEC team has lit anyone's hair on fire this year. And they will likely destroy whatever sacrificial lamb the SEC West sends to Atlanta.
Notre Dame's schedule might be even worse. Pedestrian wins over UVA, Pitt, Ga Tech (thanks to a 4th quarter rally), and Temple. Their loss is better than Bama's since Clemson is #1 in the rankings. They close the year with TWO cupcakes (Wake and BC) before playing at Stanford.
Both are ahead of undefeated Baylor and Oklahoma State.
In fact, because college football is such an exclusive "old money" club, I think the B12's best hope for a Playoff entrant isn't an undefeated Baylor or Oklahoma State. It would be a 1-loss Oklahoma. If they can get past Baylor this weekend, they'll likely leapfrog over both of their B12 counterparts. TCU's loss to Oklahoma State toasts their Playoff hopes for sure.
If the B12 had a Championship Game, that would have added another top game to the conference's champ and would have been enough to crack the Top 4.
Continuing to sit on their hands over expansion only ensures that 1-loss teams from other conferences (or Independents!) will have stronger Playoff resumes than any undefeated B12 team, save for Texas or OU.
