Unfortunately in college football and basketball there isn't an appetite to structure the regular season in a way that the postseason can be determined completely on the field. So at that point you have to start making selections using some kind of committee. And I would rather see the committee using computer models to inform their decision than just picking teams they like based on arbitrary factors.

Most computer models use things like prior season and ranking ratings heavily in the early season. They do this because there is a large amount of data that shows it is beneficial to do so. The weight given to these things drops off as the season goes on. But the model needs the ability to distinguish between different calibers of team with so many different teams and conferences.