Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

 If we effectively bar them from even participating, the system is broken. This Bearcat team has one 3 point loss to a top 10 Georgia team in the last two years. They are really good.

Cincinnati has done everything they can do to deserve inclusion in the CFP. 

Last January 24-21 to Georgia

This would be a really good argument if it were true but as you know, it is false.  You can't schedule an FCS team in your OOC then argue that you scheduled a tough OOC. 

Cincy's OOC included an FCS team (Murray State), a bad MAC school (Miami, OH), a mediocre (at best) B1G school (IU) and Notre Dame.  Per the rankings that I posted above, their OOC was:

• #8 Notre Dame
• #57 Indiana
• #95 Miami, OH
• FCS

By way of comparison, tOSU's OOC was:

• #10 Oregon
• #71 Tulsa
• #119 Akron

I'm not even sure that Cincy's OOC is better overall than Ohio State's.  ND and Oregon are roughly equivalent.  Indiana is better than Tulsa and Miami, OH is better than Akron but Cincy also has that FCS team and Murray State isn't even a good FCS team, they are 3-4 with the other three losses coming to BGSU, UT-Martin, and Austin Peay. 

Even if I simply concede that UC's OOC is vastly better than Ohio State's it OBVIOUSLY is not anywhere near enough to make up for the fact that their best league opponent is #36.  Ohio State has three league opponents in the top-15. 

I don't vouch for this link, it was simply the first thing that came up when I googled "fbs sos rankings" but using their SOS rankings, here is the current AP Top-25 with each team's SoS ranking:

• Georgia - 29
• Cincy - 78
• Bama - 50
• Oklahoma - 38
• Ohio State - 33
• Michigan - 13
• Oregon - 69
• Michigan State - 40 
• Iowa - 12
• Ole Miss - 10
• Notre Dame - 9
• Kentucky - 70
• Wake Forest - 63
• aTm - 17
• OkSU - 5
• Baylor - 6
• Pitt - 66
• Auburn - 3
• SMU - 75 <- best G5
• Penn State - 26
• SDSU - 115
• Iowa State - 20
• UTSA - 126
• CCU - 121
• BYU - 81

Since you excel at not seeing things you don't want to see I'll reorganize that list by SoS ranking:

• 3 Auburn
• 5 OkSU
• 6 Baylor
• 9 Notre Dame
• 10 Ole Miss
• 12 Iowa
• 13 Michigan
• 17 aTm
• 20 Iowa State
• 26 Penn State
• 29 Georgia
• 33 Ohio State
• 38 Oklahoma
• 40 Michigan State
• 50 Bama
• 63 Wake Forest
• 66 Pitt
• 69 Oregon
• 70 Kentucky
• 75 SMU
• 79 Cincy
• 81 BYU
• 115 SDSU
• 121 CCU
• 126 UTSA

Open your eyes and you shall see.  NONE of the ranked G5 schools play decent schedules and the gap between their schedules and even a mediocre P5 schedule is humongous. 

SEC teams still schedule FCS opponents.  And I don't think anyone expected Indiana to be this poor.  Not saying that this makes Cincy's schedule good.  But let's take a quick look at the semifinal games since the playoff began in 2015:

2015: 39 and 7 point wins
2016: 20 and 38 point wins
2017: 17 and 31 point wins
2018: 6 and 18 point wins (the prior being a double OT game)
2019: 27 and 9 point wins
2020: 35 and 6 point wins
2021: 17 and 31 point wins

Let's not act like the playoffs have been super competitive.  There have been a ton of blowouts.  Give a team that has been perfect on the year a shot....rather than shoehorning a Notre Dame in.

*ack*

I might have missed a P5 team or two but by my quick reading of the link I shared, the WORST P5 schedules are:

• #88 ASU
• #70 Kentucky
• #69 Oregon
• #68 WSU
• #67 BC
• #66 Pitt
• #63 Wake

These are not "mediocre" P5 schedules, they are the seven worst P5 schedules in the country.  Furthermore, the ranked teams ARE being punished for their weak SoS:

• #70 Kentucky is ranked #12 despite a 6-1 record with the loss at the hands of #1.  
• #69 Oregon is ranked #7 despite owning a win over 5-1 #5 tOSU.  
• #66 Pitt is ranked #17 despite only having one loss.  They are the lowest ranked 1-loss P5.  
• #63 Wake is only ranked #13 despite being undefeated.  That is five spots behind the next lowest ranked undefeated P5.  

I might have missed a P5 team or two but by my quick reading of the link I shared, the WORST P5 schedules are:

• #88 ASU
• #70 Kentucky
• #69 Oregon
• #68 WSU
• #67 BC
• #66 Pitt
• #63 Wake

These are not "mediocre" P5 schedules, they are the seven worst P5 schedules in the country.  Furthermore, the ranked teams ARE being punished for their weak SoS:

• #70 Kentucky is ranked #12 despite a 6-1 record with the loss at the hands of #1. 
• #69 Oregon is ranked #7 despite owning a win over 5-1 #5 tOSU. 
• #66 Pitt is ranked #17 despite only having one loss.  They are the lowest ranked 1-loss P5. 
• #63 Wake is only ranked #13 despite being undefeated.  That is five spots behind the next lowest ranked undefeated P5. 

But your argument is that it simply isn't fair to say, Arizona State, that they could be left out of the playoffs as a P5 champ in favor of Cincinnati. How can that be justified given these numbers?

SEC teams still schedule FCS opponents.

I'm not in favor of FCS opponents for anybody but at least when a P5 team does it their league schedule makes up for it.  Bama played Mercer but their league schedule included Florida, Ole Miss, aTm, and Auburn.  Cincy played Murray State and their league schedule included . . . crickets.  

Give a team that has been perfect on the year a shot....rather than shoehorning a Notre Dame in.

Nobody is arguing that Notre Dame should be included.  They don't look remotely like a Playoff caliber team.  They have a FG win over a horrible FSU, a FG win over a MAC school, a two TD win over Purdue, a good win over UW but that game was closer than the final score, a two score loss to some crappy G5 team, a FG win over a horrible VaTech team, and a two score win over a USC team so bad that they are in the midst of a coaching search.  Nothing about that says "Playoffs" to me or anyone else outside the city of South Bend.  

The problem with making a gift to UC is that the gift doesn't materialize out of thin air.  In order to gift a spot to the tallest midget and giving them an opportunity to get run off the field by a legitimate power you have to deprive a legitimate team of that spot.  Right now the team so deprived (per AP rankings) would be tOSU but it doesn't matter if it is tOSU, Michigan, Oregon, Michigan State, Iowa, or Ole Miss.  Any one of those teams would wipe the floor with Cincy and have their starters in street clothes kicking back watching the fourth quarter.  

There is also another fairness issue.  Lets say for the sake of argument that UGA wins out and is #1 while Oregon and Ohio State win out and finish #2 and #3 respectively then the committee decides to gift midget Cincy a spot with the Big Boys at #4.  That is ridiculously unfair to the tOSU/Oregon winner because while they are playing each other in a legitimate match-up in one semi-final, their NCG opponent gets a ridiculously easy tune-up game.  Beating Georgia is going to be tough for anyone, we don't need to make it THAT much tougher by giving them a scrimmage for their semi-final.  

Schedule like you want it or don't complain when you get relegated to the kids table. 

this goes for any team left out of the 4 team playoff

Notre Dame or any one-loss P5 as well as any G5 team

But your argument is that it simply isn't fair to say, Arizona State, that they could be left out of the playoffs as a P5 champ in favor of Cincinnati. How can that be justified given these numbers?

Arizona State is 5-2/3-1 with a divisional loss to Utah and an embarrassing OOC loss to BYU so:

This is where I get hung up. We'll gladly take a 2-loss conference champion OSU with one OOC and one conference loss and toss them in the playoff. But we won't take a 2-loss conference champion Arizona State, ever. 

Yet another reason for 5+1+2 (or 6+2).