The point of my post wasn't to judge whether or not the committee made the right decision regarding two teams in the same conference. I was rebutting the false notion that playing an extra game is something the playoff committee values highly. They don't. It can help but, according to their own rules, they aren't even supposed to look at conference championships unless they need to break a tie between two highly regarded teams. If there's no tie they don't look at it.
And as far as your premise that's it's easier to judge teams within the same conference I'd say it's the opposite. ND plays a national schedule every year against teams in at least 3 different power 5 conferences and often 4 as they are this year. After playing such a tough diverse schedule it's much easier to judge them than it is to judge teams that only play 1 non-conference power 5 team or some that don't play any. Even if it's easy for the committee to say, "we think we know who the best team is in the Big 10" that fact doesn't necessarily say anything about how they view a particular team. Again, playing an extra game and winning a conference championship can help, but it isn't the first thing the committee looks at. Historically, they have viewed strength of schedule and strength of record much higher than winning a conference and those two criteria favor ND.
