Are no regulations or even true guidelines that the committee has to follow. There is no governance or accountability whatsoever for them. The only rule they have is the 5 highest ranked conference champions are in...outside of that they can justify anything they want to with "the eyeball test", "quality losses", FPI, or whatever else they decided to pull out of their hats.
I have been saying this for years now...the only way for everybody to get a fair shake in a playoff would be for the NCAA to assume control and have a tournament like they do in FCS. Until that happens fairness will never actually happen.