Alabama Football is college football's top one-loss team

Based on computer models, a current assessment of Alabama Football is the Crimson Tide is college football's top one-loss team. Understandably, many fans disagree. Alabama losing to Vanderbilt is the worst loss of the 2024 season. That stain on the Crimson Tide's record may not wash away unless the Commodores pull off a couple more big wins this season.

Fortunately, Alabama Football has the best win of the season; over the Georgia Bulldogs. If the Bulldogs don't dip to a two or three-loss team, the Tide's win over the Dawgs will remain the season's best.

Poll voters rank Georgia above Alabama. That does not matter because the CFB Selection Committee values head-to-head results highly. That gives the Crimson Tide a Playoff trump card.

Computer models can be wrong. No model predicted a Vandy upset of the Crimson Tide. Overall, some of them are quite good.  The Prediction Tracker posts results weekly, ranking the accuracy of over 50 computer models. The latest ranking has Jeff Sagarin's three different algorithms at the top, with ESPN's FPI at No. 4. The No. 1 spot in the rankings is Sagarin's Rating, in which Alabama Football is at No. 4 and Georgia is at No. 3. While Sagarin has the Dawgs one spot higher, again if Playoff rankings came out this week, the Selection Committee would defer to head-to-head and the Crimson Tide would be the top one-loss team.

Alabama at No. 3 is where the Crimson Tide is based on ESPN's FPI calculation. The FPI has the top one-loss teams as Alabama (No. 3), Georgia (No. 4), Ole Miss (No. 5), Tennessee (No. 6) and Notre Dame (No. 7).

Alabama Football Latest ESPN Analytics Win Probabilities

• Alabama Crimson Tide vs. South Carolina - Down slightly from 91.8% to 91%

• Alabama vs. Tennessee - Down from 56.1% to 54.8%

• Alabama vs. LSU - Down from 78.7% to 74.2%

• Alabama vs. Mercer - No change at 99%

• Alabama vs. Oklahoma - Down from 78.9% to 72.2%

• Alabama vs. Auburn - Down from 93.3% to 90.4%

Alabama's loss to Vandy is inexcusable, but based on the computer models, it did not derail the Alabama Crimson Tide season.

It is too early to measure SEC standings accurately. It is fair to say that before the season began, not one fan would have predicted that going into college football Week 7, Texas A&M at 3-0 would lead the SEC and Auburn at 0-3 would be in the SEC cellar.