If there was a college football playoff in the BCS era

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

2013: #1 FSU, #2 Auburn, #3 Michigan St., #4 Alabama: Final is an Iron Bowl rematch, and Alabama gets revenge.

2012: Alabama-Oregon is unfortunately just a semifinal (2 vs. 3), but the de facto title game.  Alabama mauls Kansas St. in the national title game after beating Oregon in overtime

2011: 1 LSU 2 OK St 3 Alabama 4 Stanford; Title game the same as real life

I also think it's probably still Texas in the title game in '09.

I dont think Bama gets into playoffs in 2013 as the college football playoff usually goes with only one team per conference, to me 2011 is an exception as Outside LSU, Oklahoma ST, Bama, and Stanford there was no other one loss teams  from a BIG 5 conference

Three years is not enough to conclude that, especially when 2016 already goes against the conference championship argument.  In fact, Ohio St. this year is probably a good analogue for Alabama of 2013 (or 2015 if Arkansas doesn't complete the miracle 4th & 25 flip against Ole Miss).

But only one team from the big 10 got in ( which is why I have Stanford in 2011 making it and Oregon in 2012 despite not winning their championships)

I disagree about the hesitance to put two in the same conference in.  Do you think they would have left Ohio St. out if Penn St. was undefeated (instead of having two losses)?  OSU's only loss would have been on the road at Penn State on a fluky special teams play (just like the 2013 Iron Bowl).  In fact, we likely would have had two from the same conference had Colorado been competitive against Washington in the Pac-12 Championship Game.

What do you think about other controversial years such as 2001,2003,2004

In 2004, the main controversy stemmed from having three undefeated P6 teams, so obviously Auburn gets in and that conflict is avoided.  The last spot would have been a major fight between Texas, Cal, and Utah (not P6 at the time).  Virginia Tech would be kicking and screaming, but left out at the end of the day.  This is the hardest decision of all of the ones I have analyzed.  If I had to guess, they put in Texas, but it could have very well been Utah.  I will have to look more into 2001 and 2003, as, being 20, I don't really have firsthand memories of those seasons.

I think if we're going by the logic of this year, Cal gets into the 4 spot. Losing by just under a touchdown to #1 is going to look better than losing in a shutout to #2.