But "greatness" isn't going to be required for the CFP. In "the rest" who do you think is "great?"
Notre Dame looks "solid" as well, but not great by any stretch. I don't think they'll stay within 2 TDs of a full-strength Clemson.
Are USC or Cincy or any of the other potential #4 teams "great?" I don't see it.
Cincy has a great defense and squished a pretty good SMU offense. Their schedule has been worse, but they've been notably more dominant. To qualify, they'll have a conference title and no losses, which is usually a tad overrated, but in a case where you're scraping, it helps.
Notre Dame has top-10 quality offense and defense. It also has a second-best win of the No. 10 team in SP+ (A&M's is 32) and a second-best of 31 (A&M's is 58th).
USC has a top-10 quality offense. The rankings are wildly hard to read for such a small schedule. They have good SP+ wins, but I don't know what to take from that. Still, I'm tie breaking with the conference title, which some years doesn't mean much, but this year, every chip counts.
Whoever gets that spot is gonna get slugged, no way around that. But if I'm picking, the team that does nothing super, has a one-game resume (and it's a tight home win) and can't claim a piece of hardware falls in my estimation, as least right now. Things will change Saturday and maybe my thoughts will.