comes up with its own weekly poll to give the media something to market. When it comes time to release its Playoff pairings, then it can place the top 4 teams in whatever order. Even if the top 4 teams win on Conference Championship Weekend, the Committee doesn't necessarily have to keep the same order as the previous week's poll. Let's assume the top 4 going into Conference Championship Weekend is as follows:

1. Alabama 12-0
2. Ohio State 11-1
3. Florida State 11-1
4. Stanford 10-2

If all 4 teams win their CCG, then there isn't anything to prevent the final regular season poll from being like this:

1. Alabama 13-0
2. Ohio State 12-1
3. Stanford 11-2
4. Florida State 12-1

The Committee's justification for swapping Florida State and Stanford could be that Stanford beat #9 USC 42-24. While Florida State only beat #20 Virginia Tech 31-27. It would probably be hard for the Committee to swap #1 and #2 especially if #1 is undefeated and a SEC team. However, if #1 is an undefeated non-SEC team and won a close game against lower ranked (i.e. 20-25) or unranked opponent, then the Committee may swap them especially if #2 is a 1-loss SEC that defeated a Top 10 opponent.

In 2014, the Committee couldn't justify giving the Rose Bowl a "traditional" match-up because Florida State was 13-0 and it received some flack for dropping Florida State down the #3 while moving Oregon up to #2. Just imagine how much flack it would have received for dropping an undefeated team from #2 to #4, so a 1-loss Ohio State could move up to #3.

In 2015, the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl doesn't really have any "tradition" in the same sense as the Peach Bowl and Rose Bowl. Although the Committee did give the Orange Bowl a quasi traditional match-up ACC vs. Big XII (former Big 8 member). I can't say if it was intentional or not since the Orange Bowl didn't really have a traditional pairing since a lot of years it was the Big 8 Champion vs. At-Large/Open opponent. A case could be made it was planned since the other semi-final game was Big Ten vs. SEC which is a popular bowl match-up given the number of bowl games that have tie-ins with both conferences.