If Indiana gets in while losing to Ohio State, I think the blueprint is there.
1. Have a decent team.
2. Schedule nobody in the non-conference. Remember they bought out the Louisville game they had scheduled.
3. Have a conference schedule in one of these new mega conferences where you miss most or all of the best teams and beat the lower level teams.
Personally, I would not reward a team sitting on the fence that schedules so poorly out of conference. You can't control the conference schedule but if you happen to have a really bad one and don't beat any quality teams, and didn't play any out of conference, I don't think that should be rewarded. If it is, we're going to see some really boring Septembers in college football in the near future because if all that matters is wins then there is no incentive to play decent competition.
Reminds me of qualifying for the NCAA tournament and the Quad wins. The value of your opponents and wins matter. They should in football as well. When a team is on the bubble in February and March, beating the last place team on your homecourt doesn't move you. It shouldn't in football either.
That said, I think it's absurd that any conference should get more than 2 teams in the playoffs. Certainly not 4. The conference season should determine who the best teams are in each conference. If that's impossible because we now barely play half the other teams in the Big Ten and SEC each year, that's too bad for those conferences. Find a better format or way to determine your champion.
Of course that's exactly why the new playoff format skipped right from 4 teams, over the logical number of 8, and directly to 12. The Big Ten and SEC run the show now and want to flood the field with 3/4 teams each for money. Just a terrible setup from the start. I don't care to watch SEC football in the regular season and I certainly don't care to watch them rematch in the playoffs. And you know when Indiana and Penn State should play? During the conference season. Then one of them would have a quality win and we would know who belongs in the playoffs.