Winning a conference title is not an automatic qualifier for all champs. See Duke.
Why would those other schools schedule Tech? All 3 of those would likely be underdogs. Let’s use Duke as a comp. Do you know why Miami got the nod over them for a CFP invite? It was not conference results. You know cause Duke won the ACC. Had Duke been undefeated in non-conference they were in the CFP. Their schedule was pretty weak but the incentive to dumb down their schedule is present.
It is also ridiculous to expect Tech to be the only team to have 12 P4 teams on their schedule then win a championship game.
We absolutely know that it’s impossible for a team to get up for every game of season. That’s why the SEC had a late season cupcake.
The list of teams incentivized to dumb down their schedule exceeds those that benefited. Vandy may be one that can look back and say we should have upgraded but keep in mind their odds of winning would decrease had they upped the non-con. Maybe Miami but they also hardly left home.
Texas, Notre Dame, Duke are teams that fell short that could have had different outcomes by scheduling weaker teams under their own control. You could reason that Tech, Ole Miss and one of James Madison or Tulane (another difficult non-con loss means they’re likely out) were reinforced to not make their schedules more difficult. A&M got limited benefit from beating Notre Dame. Indianas scheduling efforts reinforced theirs.
Sark commented. You know Tech would respond. Tech was talking up scheduling Texas since news broke that Texas was going SEC so it’s not as though it’s a new thing. Everybody knows including Tech we weren’t going to adjust to accommodate here. In the end, neither team has an incentive to schedule more difficult games.