re: Ranking the 1-Loss Playoff Teams by Quality Wins

You're not wrong, but at the same time if you really want to look at these things you can trace a sort of logic to it.

Why is Minnesota a top 10 team?

Because they beat Penn State, right?

Why were they so much lower prior to that game?
Because they had:
A 7-point win over SDSU (FCS)
A 3-point double OT win over Fresno State (4-6)
A 3-point win over Georgia Southern (6-4 G5)
A 7-point win over Purdue (4-6)

Minnesota was teetering on the bottom of the Top 25, because despite being undefeated they were struggling against teams they shouldn't struggle with. Still they won, so they were ranked.

Then they beat Penn State, and had their signature win. They rocketed up the polls. Almost immediately afterwards, they lost.

If you look at the entire season, the team that has the most argument to be above Alabama is Penn State (as you stated). Their SoR is higher, and is the only one higher out of teams that are not in the top 4 (Alabama's is 6, PSU's is 5). Penn State only struggled with one mediocre team (Pitt) - all other close games were against ranked opponents.

That said, the same argument can be made regarding Oregon and Utah (both with significantly lower SOS than Alabama and Penn State), but both are also ranked above Penn State. If we take the rankings at face value and not presume some maneuvering (i.e. setting up the Utah/Oregon winner to leap frog Alabama, dropping the UGA/LSU loser out, etc), then the committee is also saying that Oregon (1 loss, SOS #44) and Utah (1 loss, SOS #50) are better playoff contenders than Penn State (1 loss, SOS #25).

Why is Baylor behind 3 2-loss teams? The same logic applied to Minnesota could be applied to them, but Minn is above all 3 of those 2-loss teams. Despite Minnesota's SOS (61) being worse than Baylor's (55)