Alabama’s path to the College Football Playoff may come down to something more slippery than pure resume math: whether the Crimson Tide can produce enough of what the selection committee actually rewards.
ESPN’s FPI projects Alabama’s schedule as the No. 15 most difficult in college football, and the Tide sit at 41.4% in the model’s playoff odds. Only Texas at 70.2% and Georgia at 63.9% are higher among SEC teams. On paper, that keeps Alabama firmly in the mix.
But the conversation around the committee is never that clean. Greg Sankey and others have argued that strength of schedule gets talked about more than it gets used, while strength of record may matter more. In practice, wins and losses still seem to drive the whole thing, and that leaves teams like Alabama navigating a subjective judgment about good wins and bad losses.
Heather Dinich reported that top coaches believe no more than 15 teams “can legitimately compete for the national title.” She also said the committee would likely forgive Alabama a bad loss if the Tide beats Georgia, but that it would not love “a lack of statement wins” from Alabama.
That’s where the schedule conversation gets tricky. Dinich noted that Alabama had four regular-season wins over ranked teams last season, and she questions whether that kind of haul is realistic this year. She isn’t sure Tennessee, Vanderbilt, and Auburn will be ranked late in the season.
The Tide, though, can’t get caught up in whether an opponent has a number next to its name. Chasing statement wins is useful only if it doesn’t pull focus away from the games Alabama is supposed to handle.
There’s a clear line here: a loss to Georgia, Texas A&M, or LSU could put Alabama in a dangerous spot. But if the Crimson Tide beats one of those teams and avoids any other losses in games where it should be favored, that should be enough to reach the Playoff field.
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