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2017 is the same thing. Ohio State despite having two losses DESERVED the spot ahead of Alabama. The committee tells us Conference Championships are supposed to matter greatly. Yes, Ohio State had 2 losses to Alabama's one.... but they also won their Conference while Bama failed to win their division.

Ohio State played #2, #6, and #9, and #16 that season.
Alabama played #7, #17, and #23

Bama didn't have a single win over a Top 15 team. A team without a Top 15 win who doesn't win their division should have zero claim to a Playoff spot ahead of a conference champ that has two Top 10 wins on their resume. Replace Alabama with any other team's name with the same resume and it would have never been a debate... Ohio State would have gotten in.

Sometimes the committee claims that strength of schedule matter, other times, they don't. The problem is they've never really told us which criteria has priority over the others.

In this case, Bama was taken in spite of the fact they lost to the best team they played and only beat 2 low end top Top 25 team, not because of their name, but because Ohio State was disqualified.

Ohio State played and beat 3 of the 4 Top 16 teams they played losing only to #2 Oklahoma, a very strong schedule. In week 9 before the Iowa game, OSU was #6 in the CFP ranking, easily in a position to make the playoff, but a 24-55 loss to a 7-5 Iowa was too big of an aw-shite to overcome. It was OSU's playoff disqualifier. It's not 2 losses that does a team in, it's one horrible loss of the two. Had Auburn finished as an 11-2 champ, they would have easily made the playoff that year even with two losses.