I doubt that is accurate.I don't think that's true? I read somewhere before the brackets were set for this year, that the committee wanted to match up IU with OSU instead of Notre Dame & IU said no to that. I don't have a link to back that up, I just remember reading it.
Neutral sites could be predetermined before knowing which teams make the playoffs.
You could assign the first round games to those neutral sites based on trying to minimize travel for the teams/fans. It may still lead to quite a bit of traveling but would be a better setup than the current home/away crap.