Alabama's performance in the SEC Championship Game against Georgia was ugly. A 28-7 loss that was mostly non-competitive put the Crimson Tide's playoff hopes in jeopardy despite the nightmare scenario being avoided with BYU losing to Texas Tech in the Big 12 Championship Game.
A win was not needed to seal Alabama's playoff fate. Just a competitive game would have been more than enough. Instead, Alabama lost by three touchdowns and continued to look like a team that had been trending in the wrong direction at the time of the season you should be peaking.
Georgia looked like the complete opposite. The Bulldogs have emerged as one of the best teams in the country and exorcized a lot of Crimson Tide demons in Atlanta.
Alabama did exactly what it didn't want to do: left its faith in the hands of a playoff committee that has proven to rank teams on the metric of vibes and how they are feeling that specific day.
But in spite of the Crimson Tide's best efforts, they are still more likely than not to make the College Football Playoff.
On Sunday morning, FanDuel still listed Alabama at -310 to make the playoff.
Alabama is the betting favorite to still make the College Football Playoff
The most likely scenario for today is that Alabama drops back to No. 10 and becomes the last team IN the College Football Playoff field. That likely would send the Crimson Tide to College Station for the opening round of the playoff on either December 19th or 20th.
There will be plenty of outside fans upset that a three-loss team could make the field, but it continues to feel unlikely that the College Football Playoff committee would want to set the precedent of leaving the SEC runner-up out of the field.
It would be the death of conference championship games as we know them. Alabama being punished for playing a game that others didn't have to would be silly.
Miami fans will undoubtedly complain if it falls this way. But the Hurricanes couldn't qualify for a conference championship that was ultimately won by a five-loss team. That's disqualifying enough in and of itself.
And despite the three-touchdown loss to Georgia yesterday, Alabama still has a road win over Georgia on its resume. At this point, there's not a better win the country than the Tide's in Athens.
As poorly as Alabama has played the last month, this team's resume is still that of a playoff team.