All they care about is the eyeball test.
And prestige.
No matter how good a team and their resume is, they don't want a team in the playoffs who doesn't have a good national following. Mainly because ticket sales & TV ratings play into the decision making.....even though they'll never admit it.
Baylor & TCU got shafted by this bias in 2014 when they placed Ohio State in over both of them during the final ranking. The committee used the excuse of Ohio State having that "13th data point" & conference championship as justification. However to this day, I maintain that if that were Oklahoma and Texas rather than Baylor and TCU, Ohio State wouldn't have jumped both schools.
This is why it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the committee finds an excuse to shoehorn Bama into the playoffs over Baylor or Utah, if either of those teams happen to win their conference titles.