Just before the Pac-12 championship game on Friday, the Washington Huskies ran through a cloud of purple smoke as they took the field. The pyrotechnic display in advance of their thoroughly dominant win over Colorado could represent the collective sigh of relief the purple-clad fan base released Sunday upon learning that the Huskies would represent the Pac-12 in the third College Football Playoff.

While the logic of the Huskies' inclusion seemed airtight, college football fans on the West Coast often suspect conspiratorial leanings back east. They grumble about biases based on region and money and media and Trilateral Commissions and the like. Just before the game Friday, this very reporter assured a former Huskies player that all would be well if Washington prevailed, as there would be no reasonable explanation for dropping the Huskies from No. 4 after they concluded a 12-1 season with a win over the CFP selection committee's No. 8 team and a conference title.

He remained deeply skeptical.

That's because several teams below the Huskies could construct compelling, if cherry-picked, arguments for their teams. The Big Ten, in particular, was a beehive of rhetorical gambits.

Penn State, playing by Big Ten rules, won the rugged Big Ten. It beat Ohio State head-to-head, arguably the best win of the season. How could the Nittany Lions not be in the playoff?

Michigan beat Penn State by 39 points -- 39 points! -- and was robbed by poor officiating at Ohio State. The Wolverines were clearly one of the best four teams. Just ask coach Jim Harbaugh.

Ohio State, already ranked No. 2 by the selection committee, handed Michigan its second defeat in the final game of the regular season, officiating gripes being as old as competition itself. The Buckeyes had the fewest losses in the Big Ten and owned a marquee nonconference win at Oklahoma.

And, if a head-to-head road loss at Penn State was so damning, then perhaps Pittsburgh, which beat Penn State and No. 3 Clemson, should be in the playoff.

Ah, but it's all just noise now. It's official: Washington is in.

It has been a long road back for the Huskies, who last won a conference title in 2000. Some might recall that 11-1, Rose Bowl-winning season. It featured one of the great BCS cherry-picking arguments between the Huskies, Miami and Florida State.

Miami coach Butch Davis was relentless in selling his team's head-to-head win over Florida State. When asked about his Hurricanes' head-to-head loss at Washington that year, he hemmed and hawed. A chill Bobby Bowden and his Seminoles emerged from the one-loss conundrum, then lost to unbeaten Oklahoma in the BCS national title game.

At the time, Huskies fans viewed themselves and their program as among the established national elite. They thought the marriage with coach Rick Neuheisel, still a honeymoon in its second year, would continue to flourish. Even the worst nightmares of the most pessimistic Huskies fans wouldn't have predicted what followed -- a program collapse that hit bottom in 2008 with a winless 0-12 campaign under Tyrone Willingham.

Yeah, the same Willingham who is on the selection committee.

Heading into Sunday, Washington's case was the strongest when the arguments were completely ferreted out, not cherry-picked.

The Huskies, like the other teams in the top four, had the best record among the teams in the debate. They also won the Pac-12 title. Their lone defeat was a close game to a top-10 USC squad. Their résumé includes wins over three teams in the CFP rankings. They played 11 different Power 5 foes and went 5-0 on the road, not including the conference title game.

For much of the season, folks cast aspersions on the Huskies' nonconference schedule, and yes, it turned out to be pretty weak. But when Big Ten member Rutgers was scheduled for a home-and-home series, it was a consistent bowl team coming off an 8-5 season. It's certainly easy to be cynical about Michigan's motives when it scheduled a home game with Colorado, which made a worst-to-first surge in the Pac-12 South that no one saw coming.

Now, with the fretting over, the Huskies turn their attention to the playoff and ... urp ... a matchup with unbeaten No. 1 Alabama, the defending national champions, in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta.

That's a reward?