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Alabama Crimson Tide: How the Selection Committee will rank the Tide

By Ronald Evans

TAMPA, FL - JANUARY 8: The National Championship Trophy sits on display to members of the media during the College Football Playoff National Championship Head Coaches Press Conference on January 8, 2017 at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images)
TAMPA, FL - JANUARY 8: The National Championship Trophy sits on display to members of the media during the College Football Playoff National Championship Head Coaches Press Conference on January 8, 2017 at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images) /
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Alabama Crimson Tide fans will anxiously await the next CFB Selection Committee ranking Tuesday night. Check out a prediction of the committee’s top eight teams.

Losing hurts as every Alabama Crimson Tide fan will attest. Making the current pain worse is the infrequency of losing at Bryant-Denny. An additional shroud is the real possibility of the Alabama Crimson Tide failing to make the College Football Playoff field for the first time – ever.

Because of the LSU loss, the Alabama Crimson Tide does not control its Playoff destiny. Help is needed. It will be impossible for many Tide fans to root for Auburn this weekend, but the Tigers taking down Georgia would boost Tide Playoff chances.

Tide fans could root for LSU to lose two of its last three regular-season games against Ole Miss, Arkansas and Texas A&M. Since that will not happen, LSU winning out, including the SEC Championship game is best for the Crimson Tide. Losing by five points to the No.1 team is not a resume killer.

There are too many other games in too many other conferences to speculate what teams are the biggest threat to a Crimson Tide final four slot. Tuesday night the Alabama Crimson Tide will need to be in the No. 4 to No. 6 range in the second ranking by the Selection Committee.

Until then three other national rankings are indicators of how the Committee may rank the Tide. In the main, three National Polls, the Crimson Tide is ranked No. 4. That is the AP, Coaches and FWAA (Football Writers Association) poll rankings. The three polls agree on the nation’s top seven teams: LSU; Ohio State; Clemson, Alabama; Georgia; Oregon and Minnesota.

An interesting contrast is the latest ESPN FPI. The mostly secret ESPN algorithm ignores head-to-head results. The latest FPI top ten is Ohio State; Clemson; Alabama; LSU; Georgia; Penn State; Oregon; Oklahoma; Auburn and Florida.

While we all wait for Tuesday night, the Bama Hammer staff has compiled a prediction of how we expect the Committee to rank the Tide and the seven other top eight teams.

Predicted Selection Committee Ranking for Nov. 12

The maximum rating points are 48, for six, first-place votes.

  1. LSU – 48 points
  2. Ohio State – 42 points
  3. Clemson – 35 points
  4. Georgia – 28 points
  5. Alabama – 25 points
  6. Oregon -18 points
  7. Utah – 9 points
  8. Minnesota – 7 points

In our staff prediction, Oklahoma received three points and Penn State got one point.

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After Tuesday night the Selection Committee will release three more Tuesday rankings. The final rankings will be released on Sunday, Dec. 8.

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