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This dis-respect for Big Ten conference champions all started when the Big Ten did not stick up for PSU in 2016.

They should have insisted back then, if our champion does not get in, then nobody from our conference gets in.  Which I know would be tricky in some years when an 8-4 team upsets a 12-0 team in the CCG, but so be it, how often does that happen anyway?

along that line...... conference championship means something (which it obviously does not)

why not put Big 12 champ OU at #3 over Notre Dame?

It's not comfortable for either of us to argue for our rivals, but do you really think OU deserves to be higher? I think -- because its defense is trash whereas ND is well-rounded -- that the Sooners are pretty obviously inferior to ND.
My thought is that the committee didn't want to include OU, but that OSU (blowout loss to a 6-6 team) and Georgia (2 losses, one a blowout to a ranked team) had too many fatal resume mistakes to be picked instead.

seems the final slot was decided between a one-loss conference champ and a two-loss non champ

Ah, Georgia was #5, instead of OSU? Just noticed that. Still, I don't believe those 4-v-5 deliberations were serious. And either way, it falls in line with my other point about the unwritten rules of getting in (don't get blown out versus the unranked, don't lose 2 games).

ND and OU are both likely to lose. OU by hamblasting. ND maybe too (though unlike OU-Bama, ND v. Clemson *could* be good). I do think ND would beat OU, though. Perhaps by a lot. But we'll never get to do that experiment, so these are just words.

I heard the committee chair mention Notre Dame being a balanced team as part of the evaluation process

but, that's merely lip service

I don't really see a problem with any of this.  Fans wants an "advantage" for their team and dislike it when arbiters who have no ax to grind don't confer them said advantage.

i'm not sold that the rankings we see are the same order if ou lost the bigxiiccg. i think there's a better than 50% chance they put osu in over uga for 2 reasons.

1 - they'd be under a tremendous amount of pressure to do so (imo it'd be the right call fwiw)
2 - otherwise they have to put a rematch of bama/uga for rd 1. and i don't think they'd do that. it'd have been easier to have bama #2 and uga #4, but they'd have to come up with some excuse to move bama down, and i don't think they had it.

this year, the committee had it easy. had 3 p5 undefeated teams, so that's easy. osu had a massive wart, uga had 2 losses and if in would be in a rematch (not ideal), and ou had just gotten redemption for against the team responsible for their lone loss (which was a 3 point loss where they had -3 turnover ratio), so they technically beat every team on their schedule. it gave them an easy road with minimal controversy.