Conferences and CCGs matter and the top 4 should get byes... But also winning the CCG shouldn't get you in.

If you go by straight SOR, you end up with

1. Oregon
2. Georgia
3. Texas
4. Notre Dame
5. Penn St
6. Tennessee 
7. Ohio St 
8. Indiana
9. South Carolina
10. Boise St
11. Unknown (probably Alabama since it's not a Big 12 or ACC team)
12. BYU

Which honestly caters to the SEC. They get two extra teams in (Alabama and South Carolina) and ALSO get two byes. BYU makes it but doesn't get a bye or home game. Big 12 Champ (ASU) misses the playoffs and the ACC is left out entirely. Notre Dame also gets a bye despite not having a conference.  So we clearly hate a playoff that is purely determined by SOR.

So if we instead go by SOR, but prioritize conferences and CCGs and have 5 autobids for conference champs (and top 4 limited to conference champs), then it looks....a lot like what we ended up with

1. Oregon
2. Georgia
3. Boise St
4. Arizona St
5. Texas
6. Notre Dame
7. Penn St
8. Tennessee
9. Ohio St
10. Indiana
11. South Carolina
12. Clemson

The only real difference between that and what we actually ended up with is 6/7 Penn St/ND are flipped and SMU made it over South Carolina.

Bottom line, neither of these are great for us. In the first scenario we make it in... But we've given up on conferences and conference championships meaning anything. Which is SO much worse long term. And benefits the SEC

And the second scenario also slightly benefits the SEC and we don't make it.

Really the only way to get where the author ended up is to say "Conferences absolutely matter.  But conferences also don't really matter"