re: Why does everyone keep saying Ohio state is clearly the better team?

This is what you are missing:

Conference Championship games were made to earn $. They also happen to match up 2 pretty good teams usually. The give the committee a 13th data point, a point that will break ties when teams who are close. Only when teams are "at the margins" as defined by the playoff committee will they take conference titles and head to head into account, along with SOS and common opponents (which OSU wins both of those 2 metrics btw). OSU and PSU are not at the margins according to the committee. The committee chair was asked 2 weeks ago if they were close and the chair said no. After that comment, OSU beat Michigan. That made the chasm larger. It admittedly closed a bit last night, but I don't believe it closed close to enough.

If I'm wrong I will happily eat crow (well not happily)