re: Committee Lesson

Like last year with OSU-PSU, the lesson is that the number of losses and how bad you lose can be decisive when teams are close. Conference championships do still matter as Clemson, OU, and UGA had to win that game to get in with a loss coming in, but it can be trumped by a consensus of experts that these jimmies would beat those joes on a neutral field, as was echoed pretty unanimously by coaches and Vegas.

I think also coloring this is that Alabama and OSU have been extraordinarily consistent and dominant teams for a decade to where OSU would get the benefit of the doubt over PSU but not over a peer like Alabama.