I've heard Mike and Mike and others go off this morning on how difficult it is to elevate OSU over Penn State, solely because Penn State would have won the Big Ten Conference.  Here's what that argument misses. 

In all other sports, you are not judged only on the conference games, but on the season as a whole.  In college football, the non conference games don't count at all on the conference championship.  But, the CFP is not picking SOLELY on conference season, but on the whole season. So, there are two elements, conference and non conference. 

Penn State lost a non conference game, and OSU didn't, and OSU had a win over a Top 10 team in Oklahoma, which PSU didn't.  

So, ONLY looking at the conference champion and completely disregarding the non conference games is ludicrous.  Suppose PSU went 0-3 in non conference, won the BTC game, and stood at 8-4; should they then get the CFP slot because they won the conference over a 11-1 OSU team?  

Head to head?  That ONLY counts as a tie breaker when the teams have equal records:  OSU could be 11-1 and PSU could be 11-2 (after BTC game) where head to head would be irrelevant because of the two losses. 

Anytime we are faced with the "head to head" argument, scream "only a tie breaker when equal records" and when faced with "conference champion" respond with "have to consider non conference also."