What's horrid about this system is that in the end, it favors revenue above all else. We only got the playoff when the LSU/Bama rematch in the BCS title game drew horrid TV ratings. Suddenly, all talk from the NCAA about how a playoff wouldn't work because of final exams vaporized.
2014: Two years ago, there was a big question about whether Florida State would be left out of the first CFP because even though they were unbeaten defending champs, they were playing like s*** until they edged us. TCU at #3 was a Big 12 co-champion with a razor-thin tiebreaking loss to Baylor, and Ohio State was on the outside looking in. Until they won the Big 10 conference championship game. Ohio State jumped TCU, who went down from #3 to #6 in a week they didn't play, and the committee sent a signal that outright conference championships matter.
2016: Fast forward to now. Penn State, whose fan base and brand has been decimated by scandal, wins the Big 10 outright. Ohio State gets in at 12-1 and leaves the Nittany Lions on the outside looking in, who are now champions of the best conference of the year and who have the strongest win of anyone in football (over OSU). Apparently now conference championships don't matter as much as record. So what changed since 2014?
Conclusion: Penn State got somewhat screwed. But TCU is the one who got royally screwed sideways, because we now know it wasn't the conference championship that mattered, but the OSU pedigree. Given that the selection committee is made of fewer members than even the coaches' poll, and they have a direct financial interest in who plays, can you really say that TCU's 55k stadium and moderate fanbase wasn't what cost them the spot in favor of Ohio State's revenue-spooging nation? We took a step in the right direction with the playoff, but three steps backward with this abominable committee.
