GRAPEVINE, Texas -- Penn State fans want answers.

"We beat Ohio State and won the Big Ten. Why aren't we in?"

The Big 12 commissioner wants clarity.

"We just added a conference championship game for the sake of the playoff, but Ohio State didn't even need to win its division."

Athletic directors across the country want a blueprint on how to schedule.

"Washington got in with one of the worst nonconference lineups in the country; can we do that, too?"

The third season of the College Football Playoff has brought some confusion, but it has also revealed a clarity that will be difficult for many outside the committee room to understand and accept: In order to pick the four best teams, the committee will sometimes be as inconsistent as the sport itself.

The playoff committee saw Ohio State as "unequivocally better" than Penn State. Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports

Fans and coaches craving step-by-step instructions for how their team can get into the playoff can forget it. There isn't any if-then promise. The criteria that have been repeated ad nauseum -- conference championships, head-to-head results, strength of schedule and common opponents -- are guidelines, not answers. The tiebreakers didn't come into play between Penn State and Ohio State because the committee never deemed their résumés comparable enough.

Quite simply, they deemed the Buckeyes "unequivocally better."

This year was different than the previous two, but the committee did set a precedent beyond its inclusion of Ohio State -- by illustrating that there are no precedents in a subjective system determined by 12 people.

"Football seasons are like snowflakes; they're all different," CFP executive director Bill Hancock said. "Next year we'll be standing here talking about some other way it fell out."

There will be times when a weak nonconference schedule can be overcome, as No. 4 Washington did with wins against Stanford, Utah, Washington State and Colorado. There will be years when the eye test trumps the head-to-head result, as was the case with No. 3 Ohio State and No. 5 Penn State. There will also be seasons in which two teams from the same conference get in, or a two-loss team is in, and a woeful nonconference lineup keeps a champion out.

The committee's protocol went out the window this year, but in came a breath of fresh air -- the reminder that finding the four best teams overrides anything else in the committee handbook.

"Fundamentally we kept in mind that our job is to determine who are the best teams," committee chairman Kirby Hocutt said. "That is what we did."

It wasn't about Penn State winning the Big Ten championship. It was about the committee thinking Washington and Ohio State were both better than the Nittany Lions. Period. It wasn't about Washington's nonconference schedule. It was about Jake Browning, Myles Gaskin, John Ross and Budda Baker.

"As we looked at those key statistics from an offensive standpoint, from a defensive standpoint, from starting field position differential, the edge was to Washington," Hocutt said. "You look at turnover margin, Washington ranks first in the country in turnover margin compared to Penn State, ranking 50."

Those on the outside have grown accustomed to the committee justifying its rankings by referring to wins against teams with records over .500, and wins against top-10 teams, but Hocutt was prepared to go beyond the schedule, and provide the numbers to back up their opinions.

He told us why Washington was better.

Those five former coaches in the room? They know how hard it is to win a conference title, and the value of a head-to-head win, but their voices in the room were influential in guiding the committee beyond resumes and into the talent.

"As we looked to our coaches to share their perspective on what they saw on the field," Hocutt said, "it was determined that Washington was the more talented team."

It wasn't that conference championships don't matter -- Clemson's title is a big reason it jumped Ohio State for the No. 2 spot. Washington never would have gotten in without beating a top-10 Colorado team and topping its résumé with the Pac-12 title.

It was that Penn State's conference title wasn't enough to overcome its "non-competitive" showing in a 39-point loss to Michigan.

The committee had reasons for every decision it made. It just wasn't in sync with what we heard the first two years, when so much emphasis was placed on conference title games (Ohio State, 2014) and head-to-head results (TCU-Baylor, 2014).

But just when you think it overlooked its protocol, there is an example of how the committee followed it.

"I'm not sure Ohio State would have been in the [playoff] this year," Hancock said, "if it hadn't gone and played Oklahoma."

So strength of schedule does matter. And it can be overcome.

"But I believe, I feel strongly about this, that the way to be sure you get in the playoff is to let your players show what they can do against the best competition," Hancock said. "I don't envision that part of it changing."

The playoff is not going to change. The protocol is not going to change. The last thing the CFP wants to do is mimic the knee-jerk reactions of the BCS.

"We are confident that this process, this protocol, works well, and this playoff is extremely popular," Hancock said. "We're extremely proud of it."

The only thing that's really guaranteed in this system?

Somebody is going to get left out.