College Football Playoff Rankings Stir Controversy as Alabama Jumps Notre Dame
Alabama fans, breathe easy - this time, the College Football Playoff committee didn’t leave the Crimson Tide out in the cold. After last year’s drama, the committee gave Alabama a key bump in the final rankings before Selection Sunday, sliding the Tide up to No. 9 and nudging Notre Dame down to No.
- It’s a small shift on paper, but in a 12-team playoff format, that could be the difference between a seat at the table and watching from home.
The move raises more than a few eyebrows, especially considering both teams sit at 10-2. The committee’s rationale? Alabama’s narrow win over a struggling Auburn team in the Iron Bowl.
Yes, that Iron Bowl - the one that always seems to deliver chaos, especially when it’s in Jordan-Hare Stadium. But this year, Auburn was 5-7, had already fired its head coach, and lost every SEC game at home.
Alabama needed a late fourth-quarter touchdown to escape with a seven-point win. Yet somehow, that was enough to tilt the scales.
Committee chairman Hunter Yurachek admitted the debate between Alabama and Notre Dame had been one of the most heated in the room over the past three weeks. “Some are very much in Alabama’s camp, some are very much in Notre Dame’s camp,” he said. But the committee ultimately leaned into the narrative of Alabama winning a rivalry game on the road - a setting Yurachek described as “an extremely tough place to play.”
That’s a generous description. Auburn went 3-4 at home this season and 0-4 in SEC play at Jordan-Hare.
One of those home losses was a 10-3 defeat to Kentucky - a team that hadn’t won a road game all year and had been losing those games by nearly four touchdowns on average. And the Vanderbilt game Yurachek referenced?
That was played in Nashville, not Auburn.
Still, Alabama’s early 17-0 lead and a late fourth-down gamble seemed to carry weight with the committee. Yurachek highlighted the decision to go for it on fourth-and-2 late in the game - a gutsy, if risky, call that worked out.
Then came a key turnover by Auburn deep in Alabama territory that sealed the win. Those moments, Yurachek said, were enough to justify the Tide’s leap over the Irish.
But that’s where things get murky. Auburn had driven to the Alabama 20-yard line before coughing up the ball.
If that drive ends differently, we’re possibly talking about overtime - or even a game-winning two-point conversion attempt by Auburn. That’s how thin the margin was.
And yet, the committee treated the win like a statement.
Now, Alabama is in prime playoff position. Whether the Tide truly deserve it over Notre Dame is another debate - one that won’t be settled by a single possession win over a sub-.500 rival.
And Notre Dame’s frustration doesn’t stop there. The Irish are still ranked ahead of Miami, despite losing to the Hurricanes head-to-head to open the season.
Miami, also 10-2, has been vocal about the perceived snub - and they’re not alone. Even Florida’s governor has weighed in, calling out the committee’s logic.
Yurachek tried to clarify: “If we were just comparing Miami and Notre Dame side by side, it’s a little bit easier to use that comparison. But we’re not comparing Notre Dame and Miami side by side. We’ve been comparing Alabama, Notre Dame, BYU and Miami collectively and evaluating those teams and how they look.”
So, in short, Miami beat Notre Dame, but Notre Dame looks better in a group comparison that also includes BYU and Alabama. That’s the kind of reasoning that makes fans and coaches alike want to pull their hair out.
Meanwhile, Ole Miss avoided any ranking punishment despite undergoing the most shocking coaching change of the season. With Lane Kiffin and several assistants gone, the Rebels still landed at No. 6 - a spot that likely secures them a first-round home game and keeps them in the hunt for a possible bye if things break their way on Saturday.
Yurachek explained that the committee didn’t factor in the coaching change, since there’s no data yet on how the Rebels perform without Kiffin. That’s a fair stance - you can’t judge what you haven’t seen. But it stands in contrast to some of the other logic applied elsewhere in the rankings.
At the end of the day, the playoff committee’s job is one of the toughest in sports. They’re tasked with ranking teams that don’t all play each other, with different schedules, different circumstances, and sometimes wildly different performances week to week. But when those decisions carry postseason consequences, the explanations matter - and this week, they’ve left more questions than answers.
Alabama moves up. Notre Dame moves down.
Miami stays stuck. And Ole Miss holds steady.
The playoff picture is nearly set, but the debates are just getting started.