The College Football Playoff committee almost made a clean getaway. That 12-team tournament starting next year is just one season too late.

It took 10 years, but the disaster scenario that was bound to eventually arise with a four-team playoff system finally did. An undefeated team from one of the so-called Power Five conferences got bumped by a team with a blemished record from what, in reality, is the Power One conference — the SEC.

It shouldn’t really surprise anyone that the conference that is the darling of ESPN, ABC and Disney is the only one that hasn’t been left out of a playoff in the decade of the four-team playoff.

Here’s the scoreboard for missed CFPs (not even considering the Group of Five’s token access): Pac-12: 7, Big 12: 4, ACC: 3, Big Ten: 2 and SEC: 0. In this case, the lowest number is best, and it’s pretty easy to surmise that a big number, $3 billion, figures in here somehow. That’s the value of the SEC’s new 10-year media rights contract.

Also, is it a coincidence that the conference among these five that has missed the most CFPs has disintegrated, as everyone in the Pac-12 except Oregon State and Washington State migrated to leagues in better viewership time zones? The only reason the Beavers and Cougars didn’t saddle up and head east is no one wanted them.

Back when the CFP came along we were all just so grateful to get away from the BCS and finally get a playoff. Never mind it was so obviously flawed. Well, after all, maybe the artificial intelligence of the BCS computers wasn’t much worse than the artificial integrity of the CFP.

Maybe it’s an impossible job. But that’s the stupidity of a four-team playoff.

It’s hard not to suspect questions were designed to match the desired answer. The committee chairman cited subjective and hypothetical criteria like how much an injured player might affect a team’s future performance. This was after Florida State won out without starting quarterback Jordan Travis, beating rival Florida and then, in the ACC championship game Saturday, Louisville, which was 10-2 and ranked No. 14.

“I wish my leg broke earlier in the season so y’all could see this team is much more than the quarterback,” Travis posted on X after the CFP field was announced. “I thought results matter.”

It’s too bad that it’s still about style points and what will sell more ads, and overcoming adversity is viewed as winning too ugly for it to count.

It’s not even ice cold comfort for the Seminoles — and, actually, anyone who believes in fairness — that at least this four-team silliness is done, and the 12-team playoff starts next year.

It can’t help but be more inclusive by definition, and it’s hard to imagine any undefeated team will get screwed over again. At least the controversies will be somewhat less consequential, like if a fourth SEC team belongs in ahead of a second Group of Five team. We all know how that will go.

The only way this could have been worse is if determining the national champion was still in the hands of sportswriters. Hard to believe that was ever the case, right?

But at least we got this one right. Here’s the top six of the Associated Press poll released Sunday: 1. Michigan (13-0), 2. Washington (13-0), 3. Texas (12-1, including a win at Alabama), 4. Florida State (12-0), 5. Alabama (12-1), 6. Georgia (12-1). (My top six was the same as the aggregate, except with Florida State third and Texas fourth.)

We are instructed by the AP to vote without bias, based on results not reputation, and to heavily weigh head-to-head matchups.

In my mind, that made it pretty simple.