head to head: they don't look at Big 12 vs. ACC for who gets multiple spots).

All comes down to individual teams and their individual profiles.

This year shows there can be different ways to try to get in:

Schedule up and then rest on having a better SOS than another team with same amounts of losses or a team with one less loss.

Or

Schedule down (what Indiana did with 3 cream puff nonconference games) and hope you just win more games than the other competitors.

It was surprising that BYU's non-conference this season turned out to have a top 10 team in it (SMU). For next 3 seasons, BYU's P4 nonconference games are Stanford, Cal, and Cal and likely none of those 3 will be top 25 games.