thought this was interesting as the comments and answers are pretty much in line with how this board sees it
Honestly, I think the Committee is going to have to relook their seeding criteria.
Byes for conference champions is a dumb idea, especially when a Clemson wins the ACC.
"Not holding the conference championship game loss against the runners-up" is also dumb. If a 12-0 team playes an 8-4 team in the conference championship game, and the 8-4 team wins somehow, that does not mean the 8-4 teams should be in and get a first-round bye. That's dumb.
The committee should probably just rank NCAA Div 1A teams 1-25, and include 1-12 i the playoffs, whether they win the championship game or not. Yeah, take the win (or loss)
into account, but do not automatically seed conference championship game winners anywhere. Just rank the teams. 1-4 seeds get a bye wherever they are from and whether the won the conference championship game or not, 5 plays 12, 6 plays 11, 7 plays 10, etc.
And for the regular season, the committee should pay close attention to strength of schedule. being 12-0 and playing the 120th strongest schedule means little (unless we want games like Clemson-Georgia or Ohio State-Texas to disappear from the regular season; if we want to see 12 weeks of Bama vs UT Martin and Ohio State vs Ball State, then go ahead and ignore strength of schedule)
When I am Planetary Commander (hope you'll vote for me!) that what I will do.