I'm not sure why you're getting bogged down in the Georgia/UCF debate, whether it was Georgia or a 2 loss Michigan team, I believe UCF would have gotten into an 8 team playoff (and if you want to put so much faith in the pre-bowl rankings, I'm not sure why you'd say they weren't deserving, when they were ranked 8th). Like I said, the only reason we're having this conversation is because ND would have taken one of the 3 at large bids, and Ohio State would have gotten an automatic bid, leaving only 2 spots for Georgia/Michigan/UCF. I believe UCF gets one of those spots. And like I said yesterday, I put basically no stock in the pre-Bowl rankings outside of #'s 1-4. I don't believe Georgia was a better team than Ohio State this year, and I believe that the reason the committee put them ahead of OSU at #5 was because it made it easier to tell a 1 loss Ohio State team that they weren't even the first team on the outside looking in. If people thought the uproar from Georgia was loud, I believe if OSU was ranked #5, it would have been deafening, considering the Big 10 was shut out entirely.
I also believe that UCF would have been given an at-large bid following their undefeated season last year if the playoffs were 8 teams. Again, the pre-bowl rankings after 1-4 don't mean anything to me (and frankly, looking at the results of the Bowl games in recent years, I'm not sure why they would matter to anyone). Of course, we'll never know, because only 4 teams could get in last year.
As far as scheduling and "respect" goes, that's how it used to work. If the 8 team playoff comes to be, I don't think that's necessarily how it will continue to work. Shit, Boise played anytime, anywhere, and what's that gotten them exactly? They still aren't one of the "big boys." According to Florida's AD, they wouldn't give them a home and home just by virtue of the fact they aren't in the right conference. Most big schools wouldn't. The bottom line is Boise State still needs to go undefeated if they want to get into the college playoff, and by scheduling Michigan State and Oregon, they are making their lives harder to accomplish that. That's the point that I think you're missing. UCF isn't looking to get the big boys to come to them and they aren't looking for respect. They are looking for an avenue to get into the national championship discussion. Getting wins against a big name on their out of conference schedule will certainly help, but it may not be the prerequisite that you think it is once the field is enlarged to 8. And if it's not a prerequisite, then schools like UCF that want to get into the playoff conversation don't have to give in to the big schools anymore when it comes to scheduling, and in fact, it may actually hurt them more to play them and lose, than it would benefit them to play them and win.
As for FSU, this isn't the 1970's and 1980's. That roadmap has about as much relevance to today's conversation about non-Power 5 schools getting into the playoff as Notre Dame's road at the beginning of the 20th century. It's like saying "Vince Coleman stole 100+ bases a few times in the mid 80's, and the Cardinals won the National League pennant twice, so in order to be successful in 2019 and win the pennant, you need a guy who can steal 100 bases." There's just no correlation at all. It's a different world, entirely.