One game does not make a season. Unless it is the last game played for a national championship. Few Alabama Crimson Tide fans have championships on their minds. For the fanbase, it will be two weeks of tunnel vision, trying to figure out if Bama will win in Baton Rouge.
College football's chaos and parity are widely debated. Both appear to be real. ESPN's David Hale provides a chaos example: "Over the past two weeks, teams ranked 1-18 in the AP poll are... 16-15. The AP top 10 are 9-8."
Crimson Tide fans have zero interest in any benefits of parity. A craving for domination holds Alabama's football history together. In past bleak intervals that sometimes lasted multiple seasons, winning it all remained the standard by which all Alabama teams are measured.
With a win in Baton Rouge, the Crimson Tide will be heavily favored to beat Vanderbilt and Auburn, followed by a Playoff home game.
Alabama not a Playoff team?
Few college football experts predict the Crimson Tide will become a Playoff team. A Sunday review of predictions from 13 ESPN college football experts, plus one from CBS Sports and one from The Athletic, revealed that only three of the 15 predict Alabama to make the Playoff field. The three had the Crimson Tide tabbed as a precarious 10-seed or 11-seed.
ESPN's Heather Dinich predicted that five SEC teams would make the Playoff field. Dinich did not project Alabama to be one of the five. Eight of the 15 experts predicted four SEC teams in the field. Five predicted the SEC will get only three teams. One, Bill Connelly, predicted just two SEC teams.
Alabama fans who don't favor computer rankings might want to reconsider. At No. 5 in ESPN's FPI and No. 7 in Jeff Sagarin's and Kenneth Massey's rankings, more experts should be predicting the Crimson Tide to make the field. The Playoff Selection Committee looks at lots of data. But in the end, the rankings are the result of individuals making their best judgment calls.
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