Ohio State has no grounds for complaining about being left out, but the Committee has no empirical basis to support its statement that Alabama's "full body of work" is better than Ohio State's
Essentially, it threw results out the window and simply said that it thought that Alabama was the better team. I think that is probably fair. But if that is the case, then the regular season games don't really matter.
The problem with that is that it leads to logical inconsistencies. For example, final 7 Auburn beat final 4 Alabama by 12 last week. Auburn then played final 3 Georgia (a more-highly ranked opponent than Bama played all year) and was punished.
Conversely, final 5 Ohio State beat final 6 Wisconsin (again, a more highly ranked opponent than Alabama even played). The committee said that Wisconsin, who Ohio State beat, is better than Auburn, to whom Bama lost. Yet ultimately put Alabama over OSU
Also, the committee rewarded Alabama for (1) playing a demonstrably easier schedule than Ohio State and (2) not playing in a conference championship game. Long-term, that isnt a good message to send.
If, at the end of the year, a group of people can simply say - without any real data or results to point to - "we think [Team A] is better than [Team B] so they're in," there isnt a ton of incentive to schedule up outside of your league, like OSU did this year
The other issue is the inconsistent attempt to apply criteria. For example - the committee cited OSU's bad loss to Iowa as weighing heavily. Iowa finished 7-5 and beat the only team to beat OU. How is Clemson's loss at 4-8 Syracuse not heavily weighed against them?
Also, Georgia lost 40-17 at Auburn while Alabama lost 26-14. Can we actually say that Georgia is better than Alabama? Bama didnt get a chance to play Auburn on a neutral field, but lost a much closer, more competitive game on the Plains.
