AUBURN, Ala. — Just a week before revealing its final four-team bracket, the College Football Playoff selection committee faces its biggest challenge yet.
In the three previous seasons of the playoff, three of the five power conferences had clear-cut, one-loss or undefeated teams that went on to win their championship games. In the first year of the playoff, 2014, the only disagreement about the committee’s final judgment was over the semantics of the “13th data point” that put Ohio State in over the Big 12 co-champions Baylor and Texas Christian. In 2015 and 2016, the committee was so confident about two 11-1 teams that it telegraphed ahead of time that each would make it in.