TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — On Tuesday, the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season were released. In the initial ranking, Alabama (6-2, 3-2 SEC) is at No. 11 behind (in order) Oregon, Ohio State, Georgia, Miami, Texas, Penn State, Tennessee, Indiana, BYU and Notre Dame and ahead of Boise State.
These Playoff rankings follow the old model of listing the 12 best teams in order, not taking into account that there will be a bracket system for the actual Playoff. Alabama’s No. 11 seed equates to a road game against SEC rival Texas in the first round of the Playoff.
Alabama is one of four SEC teams in the top 12, along with Georgia, Texas and Tennessee. Texas A&M (14), LSU (15), Ole Miss (16) and Missouri (24) are in the Top 25.
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These rankings arrive a few days before Alabama plays in the biggest game of the weekend: on the road against No. 15 LSU in a game that will carry significant national and conference implications.
Early returns favor Alabama
Alabama was ranked the highest of all two-loss teams in the initial rankings. The committee’s rankings confirm what some metrics say about Alabama: It’s the best two-loss team in the country.
The Crimson Tide have played the second-toughest schedule in the country, according to Austin Mock’s model projections. No other two-loss team is inside of the top 10 in that category. Despite the tough draw, Alabama holds the highest point differential of any two-loss team (plus-21.5), which is the fifth-highest nationally behind Georgia, Oregon, Texas and Ohio State.
Couple that with the fact Alabama holds arguably the best win of any team against Georgia and doesn’t have any bad losses. Tennessee is squarely in the Playoff race, and Vanderbilt is 6-3 overall.
Alabama’s outlook
The committee is indicating that Alabama is just on the right side of the bubble in the Playoff but should be able to solidify its spot with a win over LSU and winning out from there. Alabama has the highest Playoff probability of a two-loss team at 53 percent, and the next highest is Clemson at 26 percent. Saturday’s game at LSU is as do-or-die as it has been made out to be for Alabama: Its chances increase to 79 percent with a win and drop to 15 percent with a loss.
It’s the last tough hurdle to cross, Alabama has the 61st toughest schedule nationally for the remainder of the season, making Saturday the final opportunity to make a strong impression on the committee during the regular season. And though it’s a long shot, there is a path for Alabama to re-enter the SEC Championship Game conversation. Here’s a scenario where seven teams can finish conference play at 6-2:
- Alabama — wins out
- Georgia — loses to Ole Miss, then beats Tennessee
- LSU — loses to Alabama, wins out
- Ole Miss — wins out
- Tennessee — beats Mississippi State, loses to Georgia, then beats Vanderbilt
- Texas — loses one of the next three (Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky), then beats Texas A&M
- Texas A&M — beats Auburn, then loses to Texas
Should it get to this point, here are the tiebreaker rules:
- Head-to-head competition among the tied teams
- Record versus all common conference opponents among the tied teams
- Record against the highest-placed common conference opponent in the conference standings and proceeding through the conference standings among the tied teams
- Cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents among the tied teams
- Capped relative total scoring margin versus all conference opponents among the tied teams
- Random draw of the tied teams
If Alabama makes it to the championship game, its Playoff berth would be solidified. And a win would give the Crimson Tide a top-four seed and a first-round bye. But Saturday’s game is the biggest priority as a de facto elimination game in the first weekend of football with real Playoff rankings.
(Top photo of Kalen DeBoer: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
