No their not. You still have to prove yourself over the season, in totality. Not just some bum conference title game. Juat look at the last two years of title games in the SEC and ACC. Not even close in competition. Now look at what Clemson played this year over their conference schedule. Bona fide sht show of teams. Just putting in conference winners is lazy and dumb. Bama played UGA while Clemson and OSU played teams inferior to UGA, by a wide margin.
Georgia and Ohio State were among the four best teams this year. That is evident based on recruiting rankings and also power ratings. I mentioned a few weeks ago that Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Ohio State were the top four teams based on power ratings:
From a biased standpoint I would have loved for Georgia and/or Ohio State to have a crack at Alabama. Both teams certainly were more legit than Oklahoma or Notre Dame. But I still despise the notion of an 8-team playoff, one that excuses defeats like Ohio State had last season at Iowa and this year at Purdue. Plus we would have had Michigan in there, even though they were blown out by Notre Dame and Ohio State.
There are never more than 3-4 teams that have a legitimate chance at the title. But sometimes the final four does not always include those top 3-4 teams. Too bad it can't drop to 6 instead of 8, with the top two receiving a bye, as someone else suggested.