Annual history of CFB Playoff Selections

I've made this thread before but figure it deserves an annual refresh. People continue to be utterly baffled by the committee when we have 7 years of actual, hard data to go on to see exactly how they operate. Here is the top 4, number 5, and Notre Dame every year of the playoffs.

2014
1) Alabama 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to ole miss.
2) Oregon 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Arizona.
3) FSU 13-0. Conf champion.
4) Ohio State 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to VT
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5) Baylor 11-1. Co-champ. Loss to WVU
ND: Nonfactor at 8-5

2015
1) Clemson 13-0. Conf champion.
2) Alabama 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to ole miss
3) Michigan State 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Nebraska.
4) Oklahoma 11-1. Conf champion. Los to Texas.
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5) Iowa 12-1. Non-champ. Loss to MSU in title game
ND: 10-2, losses to Clemson and Stanford. 8th in playoff rankings

2016
1) Alabama 13-0. Conf champion.
2)Clemson 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Pitt
3) Ohio State 11-1. Non-champ. Loss to Penn State.
4) Washington 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to USC.
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5) Penn State 11-2. Conf champion. Loss to Pitt and Michigan
ND: Non factor

2017
1) Clemson 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Syracuse.
2) Oklahoma 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Iowa State.
3) UGA 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Auburn.
4) Alabama 11-1. Non-champ. Loss to Auburn.
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5) Ohio State 11-2. Conf champion. Loss to Oklahoma and Iowa
ND: 10-3, losses to UGA, Miami, Stanford. 14th in playoff rankings

2018
1) Alabama 13-0. Conf champion.
2) Clemson 13-0. Conf champion.
3) Notre Dame 12-0.
4) Oklahoma 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Texas.
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5) UGA 11-2. Non-champ. Loss to LSU and Alabama in title game


2019
1) LSU 13-0. Conf champion.
2) Ohio State 13-0. Conf champion.
3) Clemson 13-0. Conf champion.
4) Oklahoma 12-1. Conf champion. Loss to Kansas St.
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5) UGA 11-2. Non-champ. Loss to South Carolina and LSU in title game
ND: 10-2, losses to UGA and Michigan. 15th in playoff rankings


2020
1) Alabama 11-0. Conf champion.
2) Clemson 10-1. Conf champion. Loss to ND
3) Ohio State 6-0. Conf champion.
4) Notre Dame 10-1. Non-conf champion. Loss to clemson in title game
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5) Texas A&M 8-1. Non-champ. Loss to alabama



With 5 Power Conferences and 4 playoff spots, obviously a conference is going to get left out each year. Here are those cases:

2014: Big 12 where Baylor and TCU were co-champions with 11-1 records. No title game.
2015: Pac 12 champ Stanford. 11-2 with losses to Northwestern and Oregon
2016: Big 12 champ Oklahoma. 10-2 with losses to Houston and Ohio State. No title game.
2017: Big 10 champ Ohio State. 11-2 with losses to Oklahoma and Iowa. Also the Pac12 champ USC. 11-2 with losses to Washington State and Notre Dame
2018: Big 10 champ Ohio State. 12-1 with loss to Purdue. Also Pac12 champ Washington. 10-3 with losses to Auburn, Oregon, and Cal.
2019: Pac 12 champ oregon. 11-2 with losses to Auburn and Ariz. State.
2020: Big 12 champ oklahoma. 8-2 with losses to kansas state and iowa state. Also the Pac 12 champ Oregon finishing at 25th in the rankings. 4-2 with losses to oregon state and cal.


This is a lot of data to go on but presents us with a pretty clear picture of how the committee operates:

-First, you almost surely need to win your conference. Of 28 playoff teams, only 3 of them made it without winning their conference (2016 Ohio State, 2017 alabama, 2020 notre dame).
-As a follow up to the point above, let’s look at why those 3 non-champs made it. ’16 OSU made it over #5 Penn State because they only had 1 loss compared to 2 for psu. Ditto for ’17 bama who made it over #5 OSU, also because OSU had 2 losses compared to just 1 for bama. 2020 is the outlier here in that they had the same record as team #5, but they also had a win over a top 4 team (splitting the season series with them), played for their conference title while #5 didn't win their division, and the #5 team had already lost to who they'd be paired with in the first round.
-If you don’t win your conference, you need a lot of help. Mainly in the way of 2/3 of the cases above where other conference winners have 2 losses.
-No team thus far has made the playoffs with more than 1 loss.
-Notre Dame, despite being a media darling or is said to have special privileges, has only made the playoffs twice and they went undefeated and 1-loss to do so. Even in the years with 2 losses (and some “good losses” at that) they did not finish in the top 7.
-Never in the history of the playoffs has a team that did not win their conference made the playoffs over a team that did win their conference with an equal or better record. I emphasize this last point because many SEC fans still have 2017 flashbacks and are convinced to the max that bama has some kind of preferential treatment which simply isn't true. If they win the SEC this year with 1 loss, they're in. If they end up wtih 2 losses, they are out.