Alabama Football: First Playoff rankings good to Tide and SEC
By Ronald Evans
Bashing the CFB Playoff Selection Committee has become a mainstay of every season. That will continue after Tuesday night’s first rankings, but Alabama football fans have nothing to complain about.
The Crimson Tide is at No. 6, ahead of undefeated TCU. Alabama, already in a ‘win-out’ situation does not gain much being above TCU, but it is good to see the committee not be swayed much by the traditional polls.
The bigger story Tuesday night was how highly the Selection Committee values SEC teams. Ole Miss at No. 11 is the lowest-ranked SEC team. Along with Alabama, three more SEC teams are ranked above Ole Miss; LSU at No. 10, Georgia at No. 3 and the Tennessee Vols at No. 1.
Alabama Football and other top teams
How does five SEC teams in the top 11 compare to the other Power Five conferences? In the top 11, the Big Ten and the Pac 12 have two teams each. The ACC and the Big 12 only have one.
- Tennessee Vols – SEC
- Ohio State Buckeyes – Big Ten
- Georgia Bulldogs – SEC
- Clemson Tigers – ACC
- Michigan Wolverines – Big Ten
- Alabama Crimson Tide – SEC
- TCU Horned Frogs – Big 12
- Oregon Ducks – Pac 12
- USC Trojans – Pac 12
- LSU Bengal Tigers – SEC
- Ole Miss Rebels – SEC
No Alabama football fan should quibble with any of the committee’s decisions about the top 11 teams. Maybe Clemson is ranked too high. Maybe neither the Oregon Ducks nor the Southern Cal Trojans are legitimate top 10 teams. Maybe LSU is ranked too high.
At least in terms of the Alabama football season, none of those maybes matter. Even better, none of the maybes suggests an eventuality that would affect the Crimson Tide’s Playoff chances.
The core problem for all the teams listed above, except Tennessee and Alabama, is their Strength of Schedule (SOS). According to the ESPN FPI, the SOS for Tennessee is No. 19 and Alabama is at No. 10.
The other Playoff contenders and their SOS are Ohio State (No. 52); Georgia (No. 75); Clemson (No. 72); Michigan (No. 79); TCU (No. 63); Oregon (No. 20)and USC (No. 59).
Those numbers will change over the next few weeks. Given the ranking of LSU and Ole Miss, the Crimson Tide SOS will go up and increase even more with an SEC Championship game.
Complete CFB Playoff Top 25 Ranking is available here.
Next. Looking at the LSU run game. dark
It was fun Tuesday night to have the Playoff rankings back. But for Alabama, all that matters this week is LSU.