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this is not true. 2016 psu had 2 losses (when osu got in over them) and in 2017 osu had 2 losses (when bama got in over them).
an 11-1 non-champ has only gotten in over 2 loss champs. and both of those had losses to bad teams and a 30+ point loss.
unless you're counting nd, but they're 12-0 not 11-1.

Correct. I was thinking that Bama got in over OSU, but forgot about the Oklahoma loss.
Again, you want to value the regular season, but OSU gets punished for scheduling a difficult game. I recognize they also had a bad loss on top of it, but had they been playing an FCS team that week like Mercer, for example, instead of a cross-division conference game, maybe they'd have avoided that Iowa loss. 

Correct. I was thinking that Bama got in over OSU, but forgot about the Oklahoma loss.
Again, you want to value the regular season, but OSU gets punished for scheduling a difficult game. I recognize they also had a bad loss on top of it, but had they been playing an FCS team that week like Mercer, for example, instead of a cross-division conference game, maybe they'd have avoided that Iowa loss.

And they got rewarded the previous season for beating Oklahoma.  It gave them an extra ranked win over Penn St they wouldn’t have had if it were Bowling Green.  Those games are high risk/high reward.  But you aren’t going to get credit for simply scheduling them.  You get credit for winning them.

Hard to say because they played a different set of teams. Without playing similar schedules, it's still subjective to who you think had the hardest road. From what I've read, nobody thinks that UCF is better than Florida because Florida was only 9-3 where UCF was 12-0.

just looked it up and pitt played a really good schedule, so this might not be a good argument for me, lol. but i think it's close enough to merit the records as proof enough.
pitt played clemson and nd, while uga only played bama. that's really impressive for pitt (in this scenario, pitt is 1-1 here), whereas uga lost but was really tight in their 1 game.
but uga's has more of the next tier with #10 uf, 11 lsu and 14 uk, while pit had #8 ucf (undefeated) and #12 psu) in that range. uga went a pretty good 2-1 in that stretch (all 3 games back-2-back-2-back, btw), but lone loss was blowout. pitt lost both in blowout.
and last good opp for each were comparable (#20 'cuse and #23 mizzou). each won their game fairly comfortably.
both played a crap fcs team and won handily.
and both rounded out their schedule with meddling teams, pitt going 6-1, uga 7-0.
so in summary, both lost to elite teams close, but pitt has a win too while uga was a really close game. both played a couple good teams, but uga had a good showing and record, while pitt was abysmal. both played decent or crap games for the rest, but uga has no bad losses here, while pitt has 1.
i'd probably put pitt schedule as slightly tougher, but marginally. while uga's record vs their almost equal schedule is much better, even with pitt upsetting clemson (again, in this hypothetical setup). pitt's one luck up win would be enough to overwrite their pretty pathetic record vs every other good team they faced.

If you want to give it to the "best team from the whole season", you don't need a playoff. But it's by nature subjective.

THIS ^^^^

just looked it up and pitt played a really good schedule, so this might not be a good argument for me, lol. but i think it's close enough to merit the records as proof enough.
pitt played clemson and nd, while uga only played bama. that's really impressive for pitt (in this scenario, pitt is 1-1 here), whereas uga lost but was really tight in their 1 game.
but uga's has more of the next tier with #10 uf, 11 lsu and 14 uk, while pit had #8 ucf (undefeated) and #12 psu) in that range. uga went a pretty good 2-1 in that stretch (all 3 games back-2-back-2-back, btw), but lone loss was blowout. pitt lost both in blowout.
and last good opp for each were comparable (#20 'cuse and #23 mizzou). each won their game fairly comfortably.
both played a crap fcs team and won handily.
and both rounded out their schedule with meddling teams, pitt going 6-1, uga 7-0.
so in summary, both lost to elite teams close, but pitt has a win too while uga was a really close game. both played a couple good teams, but uga had a good showing and record, while pitt was abysmal. both played decent or crap games for the rest, but uga has no bad losses here, while pitt has 1.
i'd probably put pitt schedule as slightly tougher, but marginally. while uga's record vs their almost equal schedule is much better, even with pitt upsetting clemson (again, in this hypothetical setup). pitt's one luck up win would be enough to overwrite their pretty pathetic record vs every other good team they faced.

I see what you are saying, but it is still ultimately subjective. If we want to subjectively crown champions, we should go back to the old system where teams went and played in the bowl games that were affiliated with their conferences and then vote on the champion afterwards. 

But this notion that a group of people sit in a room and tell us who the best 4 are is just another way of doing that. Sure, it gives the top 4 a chance to prove it, but it leave everyone else out. And when you have ESPN talking heads telling us who the better teams/conferences are, they add too much unneeded influence into those discussions. 

If there were clearly defined criteria going into the season that every team knew before the first kickoff of the season, they can then plan and play to achieve it. And in the end, there would be no complaining because they knew what it took going in. Just as my earlier example, Michigan is not complaining that Ohio State represented the B1G East in the B1G Championship game because they won based on the predefined criteria. It didn't depend on a group of people sitting in a room to decide it.

**("no 3+ or 4+ loss teams" or "no teams ranked lower than 12th" -- though I do prefer exclusionary terms that are not dependent on something as subjective as polls or committees)

You know, in theory I like the "no 3+ or 4+ loss teams" as a solution, because a) that's objective and b) obviously those teams rarely have any real chance of winning the whole thing.
However, I think the downside to that is that it will cause teams to try to schedule as weak OOC as possible. In addition, I like the 9 conference games over 8 conference games, and once you cap the number of losses before being eligible for the CFP, conferences will try to avoid any semblance of SOS in order to ensure their champion doesn't get excluded from the playoff.
Purdue had a really hard schedule this year. Only one non-P5 opponent on the entire slate. Two P5 OOC. 9 [obviously] P5 in conference. And it hurt our final result. Although we lost to our MAC opponent, I'll bet that if we had one FCS team, two MAC teams, one P5 OOC, and only 8 conference games, we'd be a lot more likely to be 8-4 right now than 6-6. 
Is that the incentive that we want to create?

Screw Georgia!  They lost BOTH of the biggest games on the schedule this season.  They should not be considered, if you are that damn good, win your games!  UCF won without the most important player on their team when it mattered most, if UGA can not win the games it needs to, then sorry about your luck Kirby.  The same could be said about Michigan this year.  In my opinion, Michigan has just as much right be in the conversation if you are going to bring up UGA.