Meh. Forget the rankings.
Alabama beat more teams with quality records including SEC Champion Georgia (11-2), than SMU did with their best win being over Duke (9-3). Don't get me wrong, as I am not advocating for Alabama (they did not deserve to be in the CFP with 3 losses as an at-large team), but it was not about pre-season rankings.
IMO, BYU (10-2) should have been the last at-large team instead of SMU (11-2) due to the head to head win @ SMU. This is really the only issue I have with the CFP Committee. Otherwise, I though they choose, ranked and seeded as well as they could with the format with which they had to work.