Specifically around this comment "The committee will decide on the pairings and which bowls the team will play."

From what I read I agree that for the semi-final games it is all by committee but beyond that there are some requirements of who will play where before the committee then makes the rest of the decisions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Football_Playoff#Bowl_selections

...some non-semifinal bowl selections will be based on conference tie-ins, similarly to the BCS's automatic qualifier berths...

...Rose Bowl — Big Ten #1 vs. Pac-12 #1
Sugar Bowl — SEC #1 vs. Big 12 #1
Orange Bowl — ACC #1 vs. SEC #2, Big Ten #2, or Notre Dame...

...If the Big Ten or SEC champion is available for a non-playoff bowl in a year when the Rose and Sugar Bowls are hosting semifinals, that team will appear in either the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, or Peach Bowl, but not the Orange Bowl...

I also believe I read some where that in years that the Rose or Sugar are not the semi-final games that the top available B1G, Pac, SEC or B12 teams will go to those games even if their conference champ is already in the semi-finals (so a 2nd or 3rd place team from those conferences will be guaranteed to go there if their champ is in a semi-final game).

If this Rose/Sugar "top team" aspect is true then it should be noted that in years they are the semi-final games then it would appear more likely for at large teams outside of the P5 to get into a NY6 game. In years where they are not the semi-final game then they would always have 4 teams filling those slots that are from P5 leagues. So basically teams like BYU may need to target peaking in years where the Rose/Sugar are the semi-final games in order to maximize their changes of being an at-large.