Schedule better in non-conference and go 11-1 or better. I know I'm beating the dead horse but it's such BS to think because of 2014 that we have no shot. That just isn't true at all. Beat Baylor that year and we're in. If one of a whole bunch of other things happen, we're in. If we had a CCG like the Big 12 does now and we win that game, we're in.
If we go 12-0 we will be in the CFP. Period. If you disagree with that you're just being totally unreasonable. Hell, 8 times out of 10 we'll be in with a 11-1 record. So to say we don't have a shot is disengenuous, that's just the woe is us mentality. We have a shot now, we just have to win games.
That is always an easy default answer ... unless the two teams of question in one year had a common opponent (and TCU beat Minnesota 30-7 while Ohio State played them 31-24) ... and ... one of the teams lost to a less than average team in non conference (where Ohio State lost at home to a 6-6 reg season Va Tech team). Which is what you would look at for 2014.
Other non conferense games that year can be a wash. Granted TCU played samford, who was a 7 win team and SMU — But Ohio State's glorious non-conf schedule that reg season, other than the loss at home to a 6-6 Va Tech team, was a 2-9 Kent State team and a reg season 7 win Navy. EDIT: Thanks Wex for pointing out the monumental victory Ohio State also had over a cincy team that also lost to the below average Va Tech team that year.
Probably better to argue the 13th data point ... oh, wait, Ohio State did not have a 13th data point in 2016 when they got into the CFP and Penn State, who beat Ohio State in head to head that year and won the Conference Championship Game and did not get into the CFP.
Then you can look at 2015, when OU got into the CFP with 1 loss and no 13th data point, and that loss was to a 5-7 Texas team, when TCU was kept out in 2014 and only had a loss to an 11 win highly ranked team.
In the end, it is obvious this thing was a mess and it becomes obvious that having a group of people in a room in Grapevine, who, if some reports are accurate, were pushed by some of their own in the room to revote in 2014 when TCU was gonna be in on a vote in 2014, is not a reliable means for picking a playoff ... which is really an invitational to put the big brands in and keep the other brands out while its committee has yet to give a consistent answer as to the criteria they use (evident by its own contradictions year to year).
All this to say, [Baylor asshoe].