Ohio State's loss to USC dropped the Buckeyes out of the Top 10 and allowed Alabama to move up one spot to No. 9 in this week's soon-to-be-irrelevant AP Poll. With the first College Football Playoff rankings set to be released on Tuesday, this poll will only matter for a couple of days.
Where Alabama is ranked changes very little about what it has to do to get into the playoff. It starts with going on the road and knocking off LSU on Saturday, where the Crimson Tide has opened as a small underdog.
That's the cleanest path to the playoff. It's not out of the realm of possibility that the Crimson Tide could get into the 12-team field at 9-3 with a loss next week in Baton Rouge. But it'll take some chaos all around the country, and it'll take some teams Alabama has already beaten continuing to play well to boost the overall resume with no quality wins left available in the final three regular-season games.
Alabama got some resume help in this week's AP Poll.
South Carolina's rise has boosted Alabama's College Football Playoff resume
After a 2-3 start to the season, South Carolina has rebounded and won three straight games. The Gamecocks have earned road wins over Florida and Oklahoma while knocking off Tennessee at home in between. At 5-3, South Carolina has moved back into the AP Top 25 at No. 23:
https://t.co/T23NtgfCyw
— AP Top 25 (@AP_Top25) November 1, 2026
Ohio State falls out of the top 10, UCLA cracks the top 5 and New Mexico earns its first-ever ranking in the AP Top 25 poll. See where your team landed. pic.twitter.com/8s2vaaEOvj
That matters because it gives Alabama a second-ranked win to add to its resume. The Crimson Tide blew out South Carolina 49-18 at the end of September.
So if you look at the resume, Alabama has ranked wins over No. 8 Kentucky and No. 23 South Carolina. The two losses have come against No. 2 Georgia and No. 16 Tennessee.
That gives Alabama - at least in the eyes of the Associated Press - the best resume among two-loss teams. That could matter, especially if there's a logjam of three-loss teams at the end of the season, all competing for the last spot or two in the playoff.
Kalen DeBoer would prefer to avoid that scenario altogether. Beating LSU in Death Valley next weekend won't be easy. But if Alabama wants to control its own destiny in the College Football Playoff race, it'll be necessary.
DeBoer has proven capable of taking the Crimson Tide into difficult road environments and emerging victorious. Alabama beat LSU in Baton Rouge two years ago. Last season, Alabama earned road wins over Georgia, Missouri, and Auburn in the regular season before besting Oklahoma in Norman in the College Football Playoff.
This year, Alabama has road wins over Kentucky and Mississippi State. That win in Lexington continues to look better and better with the Wildcats winning every other game and sitting at No. 8 in the AP Poll.
The pressure will be immense this weekend. Both teams are desperate for a win to stay alive in the playoff hunt, and Alabama is going to have to play better than it has the last month to pull off the mild road upset.
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