No one is getting screwed. No one know much about the playoffs except Georgia is better than Texas as they played twice and Texas lost both. The rest is simply opinions less the 4 Conference Champions who got there winning their Conferences. On field matters more them perception or some silly statistical model that says X is better than Y even though there is no real commonality in who they played during the season.
Hypothetical which was pretty close to happening this year.
Oregon goes 12-0 (let's assume that was GT). ND goes 12-0 (would have without the head scratching loss to NIU). We get stuck with ND in the our bracket because they can only be the #5 seed. The #4 and #6 seeds are significantly weaker. We are whining all to high heaven about how much the NCAA and everyone screws GT. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it.
Just seed them based on rankings. Let the conference champs host if they aren't top 4.
1 - Oregon vs 8/9 Indiana/Boise - Boise hosts instead of Indiana as a top 4 conference champ
2 - Georgia vs 7/10 Tenn/SMU - Tennessee hosts
3 - Texas vs 6/11 Ohio St/Arizona St - ASU hosts as a conference champ
4 - Penn St vs 5/12 ND/Clemson - ND hosts because Clemson is NOT a top 4 conference champ. If we want Clemson to host as a conference champ, I don't care go for it.
But this bracket is way more balanced and fair. And it has nothing to do with ND being independent or the SEC or the Big Ten or any of those advantages we cry about.