Also not lost on me is how the SEC used their influence to guarantee as smooth a path as possible for UGA to get to the semifinals and set the bracket up for both IU and Ohio State to have actual quarterfinal games in this format.
Bama loses at home to Oklahoma a few weeks ago, so naturally that head-to-head means nothing and they get to play each other again before facing Indiana. Ohio State then plays the winner of Miami and TX A&M....meanwhile UGA, who is ranked behind both OSU and Indiana will face a coachless Ole Miss team after they dismantle Tulane the week prior.
Oregon on same side of bracket as the Hoosiers, but at least that head to head rematch wouldn't potentially happen until the semifinals - and I think they should have adjusted seeding to knock Ole Miss down due to Kiffin leaving and bumped A&M up to 6, setting up a 2nd round game between UGA and A&M.
If they're going to stick with these mega conferences who hardly ever have their best programs play each other in the regular season enough to really sort out who's best in each conference, I think the better approach to this playoff garbage is to have mini-playoffs to determine each conference winner (top 4 teams in each conference have a 4 team playoff to determine conference champs). Then the winner of each of those power 4 conferences gets the bid to a 4 team playoff. Tell Notre Dame to join the damn ACC as a football team like the rest of their athletic program, and move on. If the mid/lower tier college football D1 conferences don't like that, have them form their own bowl subdivision and forget the charade that any of them could be competitive against the blue bloods.