Happy Gump Day, everyone.
Since it’s Gump Day, we’re first going to talk about how Alabama is about to finish the season by blowing the doors off of Auburn and Georgia and earn a bye on the way to the national
championship.
And they’d better after last night’s committee rankings, just to be safe.
I have a feeling a drop of six spots from No. 4 has more to do with the initial season opening loss to average Florida State, than it does a two-point loss to previous No. 11 Oklahoma (insert your Notre Dame joke here).
By moving the Tide to No. 10, the committee has made it difficult for the SEC to have a three-loss team in the 12-team field in a chalk scenario. Alabama could beat Auburn, and not move in next week’s poll ― then lose in the SEC Championship game and drop out of the playoff.
If that were to happen after last season when SMU just couldn’t be left out of the field after losing in the ACC Championship, with the SEC set to add a ninth game to an already brutal schedule, Greg Sankey may well initiate the process of blowing the whole thing up. At that point, the committee has made it clear that SOS really doesn’t matter. Alabama has four ranked wins including a road win at Georgia, who is the highest ranked one-loss team. The Tide’s SOS is 4th per both ESPN and Sagarin, and their ESPN SOR is 8th.
Make no mistake: Alabama played terribly against Florida State and turned the ball over against Oklahoma, so it’s their own fault if they were lose in Atlanta and miss the field. The FSU game is the black mark, they are not a good team, and it’s fair to believe that Alabama would handle them at this stage of the season rather than in the opener. However Georgia, who plays Tech every year and thus don’t always schedule another major game, opened the season with Marshall. Indiana played Old Dominion to start, Texas A&M played UTSA, Texas Tech played Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
Those are your top five save for Ohio State, who beat Texas 14-7 to open the season. For the Longhorns, that game has effectively eliminated them from playoff competition as they’ve lost twice in the SEC. If they and Alabama had played one of the four directional schools mentioned above rather than OSU and FSU, things would be looking quite differently for both.
If the above scenario were to come to fruition, BYU would be the most likely bid stealer.
Follow along, as we unpack this wild, wild twist. Alabama tumbled six spots to No. 10 in the CFP rankings after a two-point loss at home to Oklahoma, a team the committee values enough to rank No. 8.
Alabama is safe for now, but slip even one spot to No. 11, and the Tide would be in danger of missing the playoff. Why? Because, even though the ACC and Group of Five playoff qualifiers are likely to be ranked behind Alabama, but they’ll snatch two spots via automatic bids.
In other words, to be safe for an at-large bid, a team needs to be ranked inside the top 10.
The committee almost certainly would prefer to avoid booting Alabama after a loss in the SEC Championship, but if No. 11 BYU reaches the Big 12 Championship and avenges its only loss by upsetting No. 5 Texas Tech, the committee could be left with little choice.
Oh they’d have a choice. Texas Tech has the 52nd ranked SOS on ESPN and 70th on Sagarin. If they can drop Alabama, with four ranked wins, six spots after losing by two to Oklahoma, they can drop a Texas Tech team with two ranked wins just as many after losing to BYU. Would they? Who knows?
I sure hope that all of you who have argued to keep conference championship games can now see the error of your ways. This is a mess, and a few teams playing an extra game, in this case two rematches, just makes it messier.
David Hale wrote about the absurdity of it all.
Would you believe that Alabama, Oregon and Notre Dame have combined for five wins against other ranked teams?
It’s true.
Alabama has beaten No. 4 Georgia, No. 14 Vanderbilt, No. 20 Tennessee and No. 22 Missouri.
Notre Dame has beaten … well, only No. 15 USC.
And Oregon has a big win against … sorry, it just says “Error 404: Page Not Found.”
And yet, the Tide check in at No. 10 this week, barely on the fringe of the playoff, behind both the Ducks and the Irish.
Why? Because Alabama had the temerity to lose a game last week by two points — a game in which it missed a field goal attempt on a controversial tipped ball, nearly doubled Oklahoma’s yardage, and, based on net success rates, was clearly the unluckiest team in the country.
Sigh.
The players do want to win the SEC.
“The SEC is really the best conference in all of college football,” Overton said. “Just having that alone is kind of comparing a national championship, just because of how hard our league is. Anything that we can end up putting on the wall, make a memory of.”
Of course, if Alabama falls to Auburn to end the regular season, the point is probably moot. The Crimson Tide would likely be out of the SEC championship game after that, and would have a difficult time making the CFP as well.
That’s a point linebacker Nikhai Hill-Green made when asked whether the SEC title game is still important to Alabama players.
“I mean, I’m not really worried about a conference championship,” Hill-Green said. “We got to win out. So, I’m just focused on these two games.”
John Copeland headlined three inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
A dominant defensive player throughout his time with the Crimson Tide
Key member of the 1992 National Championship team, helping Alabama defeat the Miami Hurricanes, 34-13, in the Sugar Bowl and secure the program’s 12th national title overall and first since ’79
Named a consensus All-American during his senior season in 1992
All-SEC honoree in both years with the Crimson Tide – First Team All-SEC in 1992 and Second Team All-SEC in 1991
Selected fifth overall in the 1993 NFL Draft by the Cincinnati Bengals, becoming one of the highest drafted defensive players in Alabama history at the time
Totaled an eight-year NFL career, serving as a consistent presence on the Bengals’ defensive front
Appeared in 107 games (102 starts), totaling 263 tackles and 24 sacks during his NFL career
Last, I have struggled with the best way to announce this to the community but have decided that there is no good way. Most of you know that Erik Evans would normally be writing this piece on a Wednesday. Unfortunately, he is no longer on the masthead. I’d rather not get into the reasons why, feel free to reach out directly to him via email if you’d like more information. All I’ll say is that things are very different around here than they were a few years ago. Erik is a good friend who has obviously made some incredible contributions to the success of this site for many years, and we are all heartbroken that he will no longer be a part of it.
This Gump Day hasn’t been very fun.
That’s about it for now. Have a great day.
Roll Tide.
