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They have always said a conference championship is not a requirement and is only factored in as a tiebreaker (along with others factors) if they consider the two teams equal.

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No they change their vague criteria every year

There needs to be a set list

Yeah, the mandate statement does say something about conference championships and head to head being "tiebreakers" between teams that "look similar."

However, it also includes "strength of schedule" in that "tiebreakers" statement.

It's really all pretty vague to be honest as one could say that most of the teams that have "separated" themselves according to the committee to the point of not needing the "tiebreaker" have done so by excelling against a tougher "strength of schedule."

In general though, I don't think the committee has really gotten the 4 teams all that wrong this year or in the past -- especially keeping in mind that the biggest benefit of the 4 team playoff is still to be sure you don't have 3 undefeated teams with one being left out.

It occurs to me that the biggest problem with the committee is that the statements made by the chairperson every year seem so "off the cuff" and inconsistent.

If this year, they simply stated:

1. Ohio St is in because of three wins (two on the road) over teams we consider Top10 opposition. Regardless of the loss at Penn State that was just considered too strong compared to the rest of the teams. Period.

2. Our real debate came down to Washington vs Penn State for the final spot and that was a "razor thin" decision due to Penn State scheduling a much tougher OOC slate.

However, in the end, Washington got the slightest of nods because we feel that their conference schedule did allow them to play five games against quality opponents and their 4-1 record and overall performance (based on performance metrics ect) in those games was viewed as ever so slightly stronger than Penn St's overall performance (based on performance metrics ect) in going 5-2 against teams that we consider quality wins.

We would like to emphasize that a two loss Penn State was only this close to a one loss Washington due to their tough out of conference schedule as it came very close to "compensating" for the extra loss.

You could still argue with the decision--especially in that one has to believe that simply increasing "geographical/conference representation" has to play a part even though they certainly can't say that -- but it would add some clarity and consistency if they simply kept to same terminology every year.

This post was edited on 12/4/16 at 5:26 pm