Had TCU or Baylor been named Oklahoma, they would’ve made the College Football Playoff.
Had Ohio State been Indiana or Northwestern, the Buckeyes would’ve had no chance.
Welcome to the same old world of the inaugural College Football Playoff.
What a joke.
Not only was the choice of Ohio State misguided, the week-by-week process became a mess.
Unbeaten Florida State should have been the No. 1 team. TCU and Baylor were clearly better football teams than Ohio State. I have no doubt that either team would have beaten Alabama, which gets a bye into the championship final.
TCU beats a decent Texas team by 38 points and whips Iowa State by 52 points and drops from playoff contention. It was like TCU’s final two games did not matter.
No one ever asked what could TCU had done the last two weeks to change the final outcome.
The committee was looking for any reason to include Ohio State and exclude TCU and Baylor.
It was Ohio State’s name and historical tradition that the committee liked. The tradition of TCU and Baylor wasn’t good enough.
TCU and Baylor were both good enough on the field.
The Buckeyes played a weaker league schedule against weaker Big 10 teams.  Ohio State had the worst-looking loss against a mediocre 6-6 Virginia Tech team. TCU had the best loss, a 61-58 defeat against Baylor. TCU, by the way, led that Baylor game 58-37 with 12 minutes left. Baylor had the best victory over TCU.
The committee acted like first-graders, changing their mind each week what was important — strength of schedule, non-league schedule, league schedule, quality wins or quality losses.
TCU was judged to be better than Florida State, Ohio State and Baylor one week; wins by 52 against Iowa State; and suddenly is a worse football team than Florida State, Ohio State and Baylor.
Wow.
The inclusion of Ohio State proves that a poor non-league does not matter.
Voting Baylor ahead of TCU proves that a weak non-league schedule does not matter.
Voting Ohio State into the top four proves that nothing has changed with big-time football.
It’s all about a name brand like Ohio State. Given a choice compared to a name team, high quality teams like TCU or Baylor will never be invited.
Jim Misunas