No citation on that note.
And I suspect it could be the following thing: yes, each of those five have a contract bowl tie-in that guarantees their champion access ... in years that that contract bowl is not a semi-final. So in a sense, it is true. Particularly in years when the Fiesta and Peach are the semi-finals.
We've simply never had to test what happens when a contract bowl is a semi-final and the contract conference's champion is not ranked in the top 12.
That hasn't happened, mainly because Florida State or Clemson have always been in the CFP until this year. Nor have any of the other conferences ever had a conf champion that wouldn't have been ranked in the top 12.
This would have been the first time in the history of the NY6, if Pitt had not gotten ranked top 12.
I think they did, purposefully rank Pitt #12 explicitly to avoid that. Yeah, Pitt had a nice win ... but I don't see any particular reason why they would jump BYU. Pitt went from #15 to #12, while BYU went from #12 to #13 (did not play a game).