[OutsiderFan]

...[in the] the NFL... you get in by winning your division, regardless of whether you have suffered horrible losses to other teams that will not be making it.

Only college football has never acted this way.  The problem is four teams is not enough for a playoff to be practical because there are five major conferences: Pac-12, Big12, B1G, ACC, and SEC (sorry ACC, you aren't major).  I'd be in favor of ranking the conferences against each other and choosing the champions of the Top 4 conferences, but you've heard plenty of chirping from the SEC that "we deserve two teams" since the playoff talk started, and then you have your issue with comparing conferences against each other.

The thing the committee has the opportunity to do is establish some order in the selection process.  One thing they can (and I expect will do), is follow the NCAA's championship field selection philosophy which is to reward the teams that play the toughest schedules so a Stanford with two losses against the toughest schedule is valued more than Ohio State's one loss against a significantly less tough one.  If this is the case, there will be an incentive for the other conferences to move to nine conference games and tougher OOC games.  This would really be great for college football, and establish some order that can be built on for when the playoffs expand, because in the never ending quest for more revenues, there will be an economic imperative to expand.

[OutsiderFan]

...[in the] the NFL... you get in by winning your division, regardless of whether you have suffered horrible losses to other teams that will not be making it.

Only college football has never acted this way.  The problem is four teams is not enough for a playoff to be practical because there are five major conferences: Pac-12, Big12, B1G, ACC, and SEC (sorry ACC, you aren't major).  I'd be in favor of ranking the conferences against each other and choosing the champions of the Top 4 conferences, but you've heard plenty of chirping from the SEC that "we deserve two teams" since the playoff talk started, and then you have your issue with comparing conferences against each other.

The thing the committee has the opportunity to do is establish some order in the selection process.  One thing they can (and I expect will do), is follow the NCAA's championship field selection philosophy which is to reward the teams that play the toughest schedules so a Stanford with two losses against the toughest schedule is valued more than Ohio State's one loss against a significantly less tough one.  If this is the case, there will be an incentive for the other conferences to move to nine conference games and tougher OOC games.  This would really be great for college football, and establish some order that can be built on for when the playoffs expand, because in the never ending quest for more revenues, there will be an economic imperative to expand.