The playoff committee has existed for two years. The committee's top 4 is the same as it would have been under the BCS formula. There has been no extra special weight given to conference championship games beyond it being another game to consider. In fact, this year the BCS formula ranked Stanford higher than the committee did who placed Iowa at #5 and Stanford #6. I have never seen Iowa/Stanford rankings discussed anywhere because it doesn't fit the conference/conference championship narrative. I am guessing the narrative ASSUMES it would be reversed if that was for a #4 instead of a #5. ND or any other independent has not been slighted by the committee. ND was in the top 4 in one of the released rankings but people discounted it ASSUMING the narrative would overtake it at the end. People continue to overreact to Baylor missing the playoffs. Their OOC was horrible and Ohio State had a better body of work. Yes, that was in part due to the conference championship game. That just means OOC scheduling is more important to the Big 12. They seem to think they can't get that in order and are considering the ridiculous notion of having a conference championship after a round-robin. In ND's case, it's schedule is traditionally good enough to give it an excellent shot to have a 11-1 resume that gives it a great chance to get in. It would have been a coinflip with OU this year because ND didn't have any top flight wins other than the potential Stanford win but that would have given Stanford 3 losses.