No team in the country can bank the collection of wins that Alabama football can. While the Florida State loss still sticks out like a sore thumb, it feels like a long-distant memory at this point.
Alabama is the only team in the country that has five wins over Sagarin's Top 30 - and a sixth over a team ranked No. 31. They'll have a chance to add two more to the resume in the regular season against Oklahoma (No. 14) and Auburn (No. 28).
Alabama remained No. 4 in the College Football Playoff committee's second rankings of the 2025 season. But a side-by-side comparison of strength of schedule tells you an important fact to remember: not all schedules - or records - are built the same.
Alabama has the highest strength of schedule of the current projected playoff field at No. 6. In fact, the Crimson Tide is the only team with a Top 10 strength of schedule among the teams currently in the field:
Strength of Schedule for Each Projected College Football Playoff Team
— SEC Numbers Guy (@secnumbersguy) November 12, 2025
1 Ohio State - 41
2 Indiana - 33
3 Texas A&M - 15
4 Alabama - 6
5 Georgia - 11
6 Texas Tech - 48
7 Ole Miss - 32
8 Oregon - 24
9 Notre Dame - 30
10 Texas - 13
11 Miami - 39
12 USF - 54
pic.twitter.com/T5mjDaxCMg
It's hard to ignore the strength of schedules of No. 1 Ohio State (41st) and No. 2 Indiana (33rd), but at least the Hoosiers went on the road and knocked off Oregon.
The defending National Champions, on the other hand, have effectively had a warm-up season in anticipation of the College Football Playoff. That's going to matter in the playoff when every other team is dinged up and the Buckeyes have been coasting for weeks.
Ohio State's cupcake schedule has been nothing but a CFP warm-up
At the same time Alabama endured a four-game gauntlet of Georgia, Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Tennessee, here's who Ohio State was playing:
Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Ohio State has played and beaten one team currently ranked in the CFP Top 25. The Buckeyes edged out Texas 14-7 at home in Week 1. Their best win outside of that is probably on the road against Washington or Illinois, neither of which is ranked at this point.
That's the same Illinois that lost by 53 points against Indiana and the same Washington that just lost to a Wisconsin team whose leading passer was their punter.
Ohio State's next two games will come at home against UCLA and Rutgers before facing Michigan in the regular season finale. They'll demolish the Bruins and Scarlet Knights and then have the audacity to criticize Alabama for playing Eastern Illinois next week, completely ignoring how much more of a grind the schedule has been for the Crimson Tide.
Hypocrisy is never in short supply in Columbus.