And I doubt if you hear that mentioned.
The criteria itself has a major bias toward conference champions.
"The criteria to be provided to the selection committee must be aligned with the ideals of the commissioners, Presidents, athletic directors and coaches to honor regular season success while at the same time providing enough flexibility and discretion to select a non‐champion or independent under circumstances where that particular non‐champion or independent is unequivocally one of the four best teams in the country."
It is hard to argue that a one loss non conference champ is "unequivocally" better than a 13-0 conference champ.
In 2018, the only real decision was between ND and Ohio State. OSU close win over Maryland and loss to Purdue later in the season made it easier to see ND as "unequivocally" better than OSU when ND/OSU schedules were ranked near the same as well as their results versus top 10/top 30 teams. On top of that, no one on the committee was going to do OSU any favors and Gene Smith's ability to present a case for the Big 10 champ was severely hindered.