After another wild weekend of college football, Alabama fans will find themselves glued to the television to see where the Tide will land during Tuesday night's playoff rankings show. Of course, after the tough loss to Oklahoma, they will take a tumble, and we will see how far that will be. Though the loss to Oklahoma isn't necessarily a bad loss, with so many undefeated and one-loss Power Four teams, it is very likely the Tide will find themselves in the No. 10 spot.
Oklahoma should be moving up to an at-large spot after winning in Tuscaloosa, and it will be interesting to see if that win will be good enough to pass Notre Dame in the rankings. The Irish have been playing great football as of late, and as dominant as they were against Pitt on the road, will a win in Tuscaloosa push the Sooners past them or right behind them in the ninth spot?
The battle of the two-loss teams will be interesting for the remainder of the college football season, but I am predicting tomorrow night we will see Notre Dame at eight, OU at nine, and then Alabama dropping to 10th. We know for Alabama, no matter what the rankings are this week or going into Iron Bowl week, it will come down to winning on the plains of Auburn. When comparing losses of two-loss teams, Bama has the worst loss and, of course, loses the head-to-head tie breaker to Oklahoma. The playoff committee really seems to be big on Notre Dame, but when comparing wins, both the Sooners and Tide have better wins.
The other two loss teams still alive are USC, Miami, Utah, and Michigan, and all should move up a little after Texas took their third loss of the regular season. Over the next two weeks, there is a good chance that at least three of these two-loss teams take a loss with USC going to Oregon on Saturday, Miami finishing their regular season at Pitt, and Michigan hosting Ohio State next weekend. Of course, the Wolverines have had the Buckeyes' number as of late, but from an Alabama perspective, all we can hope for is the least amount of two-loss teams remaining to drop greatly before the Championship Game Saturday.
What we are learning this year is despite it seeming easier for the committee to select teams with more playoff slots, the number of possible two-loss teams after Thanksgiving weekend could have their heads spinning.