All 3 of those teams are great teams. I am not a big fan of overanalyzing who they played in September. Given the circumstances it has to be done, but that doesn't really tell you who is a better team. So if Baylor misses one play on their comeback against TCU all of the sudden TCU is a lot better? It is all so arbitrary. And I'm totally ok with that kind of stuff when you are talking about team 69 in March madness. But that's why it needs to be 8. #9 and #10 can cry but there is never a #9 or #10 team that can complain legitimately.
Agreed - they're arguing over whether or not they deserve to be in the field. For a four team field, if the fifth team is close in quality to the four in front of it, they would be able to argue they'd have a significant shot of winning two upsets. Perhaps small (5-10%), but significant. For an eight team field the chances of the ninth team claiming they could win three upsets in a row is less. For the bball the "first 4 out" usually don't even try to argue they'd advance to the sweet 16, their arguments tend to be about strength of schedule and comparing resumes with the "last 4 in". With that or with an 8+ team football playoff, it would wind up being a discussion about "Team D would have put up a better fight than Team C versus Team A". That's is something you can have a argument about, or be the basis for a
blog / personal brand, but it's not the same thing as claiming your team could legitimately survive more than a round or two of a knockout tournament.