What to make of one-loss Alabama ahead of pivotal stretch
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Alex Scarborough, ESPN Staff Writer
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A month ago, a nearly empty Bryant-Denny Stadium felt like a ghost town as the clock ticked toward midnight. The only sound was the whir of gas-powered blowers pushing trash into piles for pickup. While Texas celebrated becoming playoff contenders inside the visitor’s locker room, it appeared the sun had set early on Alabama’s season. Kiss the seemingly annual trip to the national championship game goodbye. Those travel reservations might as well have gone in the refuse bin alongside empty shots of whiskey and shattered gas station sunglasses.
A week later, an ugly 17-3 win at South Florida seemed to signal something even more damning: the decline of the dynasty under Nick Saban, which had dominated college football with six championships since 2009. The offense, which had in recent years evolved into one of the best in football with star quarterbacks and receivers, reverted to a shell of its former self. Quarterback Jalen Milroe, the heir apparent to No. 1 draft pick Bryce Young, was benched; his replacements, Tyler Buchner and Ty Simpson, yielded the worst combined QBR of the Saban era. Saban stood on a water cooler in Tampa and preached positivity while the sky was falling around him.
Numerous former players took to social media during and after the game to question how it had gotten so bad, so quickly. And those who resisted the urge to post were no less distraught. A former offensive player focused on the line’s struggles to help the running game and protect the quarterback; “It’s a perfect storm,” he said, noting that the personnel across the board was no longer elite. A former defensive player went big-picture, wondering if Saban was still a fit for the modern game given the tandem impact of the transfer portal and NIL.
The scrutiny on the Mal Moore Athletic Facility, home to the football program, was intense. But internally, questions were being asked and answered. Veteran players were taking ownership. And a formula — imperfect though it was — was taking shape that would bring about a turnaround few saw coming. It’s a turnaround reminiscent of eight years earlier when Saban famously chided the media for burying the team after an early loss to Ole Miss. His exact words were, “If it was up to you, we’re six-foot under already. We’re dead and buried and gone.” Alabama went on to win the championship.
The rush to eulogize the program came quickly after Texas and USF, and since then public acceptance of this Alabama team has been gradual. But after five-straight wins, an air of belief has taken root among players. The defense is playing as well as it has in years, especially the front seven, which has turned up the pressure on opposing quarterbacks. Meanwhile, Milroe has settled in after being named the starter — still shaky in the short-to-intermediate passing game, but incredibly effective at pushing the ball downfield.
After a closer-than-expected win at home against Arkansas on Saturday, Alabama sits at No. 11 in the AP poll ahead of back-to-back games against Tennessee and LSU — the most pivotal stretch of the season.
Each game will be a reminder of the team’s two losses last season — the enduring images of fans rushing the field in Knoxville and Baton Rouge, celebrating the downfall of a rival that had tormented them for the better part of a decade. After Tennessee won, it rubbed salt in the wound by playing Alabama favorite “Dixieland Delight” over the loudspeakers inside Neyland Stadium.
If motivation was part of the problem early in the season, it shouldn’t be on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) when the Tide host the Vols.
AS BAD AS losing to Texas was, marking Alabama’s first double-digit loss at home since 2004, Saban didn’t see his team splintering under the pressure.
That changed against USF, though.
“This was the first game where I saw some guys a little frustrated,” Saban said at the time. “I think the frustration came maybe because we weren’t as focused as we needed to be, which is my responsibility.”
But it wasn’t his responsibility alone.
The Sunday after the game, players called a meeting to clear the air and get everyone on the same page. As junior offensive tackle JC Latham put it, it was about “holding guys accountable.”
A vocal leader who this summer called talk of the Alabama dynasty ending “extremely disrespectful,” Latham was reluctant to divulge too many details about what was said behind closed doors. But after hearing from other players in subsequent weeks, a picture of the meeting has come into focus.
The tenor wasn’t combative, more matter-of-fact as if the team leaders felt the need to hit the proverbial reset button — albeit early in the season.
“We are all capable — the whole team,” said linebacker Chris Braswell. “We’re way better than that. … We just wanted to get back to that Bama standard.”
Running back Jase McClellan echoed the importance of playing to the standard as well as finishing and being more aggressive. Multiple players spoke during the meeting. In a radio interview, cornerback Terrion Arnold singled out Latham, Milroe, linebacker Dallas Turner and cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry. Arnold said it had gotten to the point where they needed to get things “off their chest.”
“You call yourself a family, a brotherhood,” Arnold said. “When we have those type of meetings … if you don’t feel like you can say it to your brother, you’re not a real brother.”
Defensive tackle Tim Smith agreed that it wasn’t a lack of knowledge or ability holding the team back. Rather, he said, the message that stood out was, “We need to have the focus to execute.”
“Everyone understood that [the meeting] was needed and very much necessary,” Smith said. “There wasn’t any complaining like, ‘Aw, why do we have to meet as a team?’ We’re a brotherhood and everybody is trying to be on the same page.
“But a lot of guys took accountability in what was said throughout the meeting, so I think it was a pretty good one.”
Milroe said he sensed a change after beating then-No. 15 Ole Miss by two touchdowns. The Rebs’ 10 points in the game were the fewest they’d scored against an SEC opponent during coach Lane Kiffin’s tenure.
“We do have our swagger back,” Milroe said, “but we do have to acknowledge that we’ve got a lot of work to do.
“But I will say this: that we are hungry to improve and we’re excited for what the future holds.”
Kiffin came away a believer — not that he wasn’t before. The way Alabama fought back from down 7-6 at halftime and pulled away in the second half, Kiffin said, was as simple as the Tide having great players that “you can only keep … down so long.”
Kiffin went on to say he doesn’t like playing the Crimson Tide after they have had a bad game. He called his former boss the “best in the world” at motivating players after a setback.
“He does a great job of getting them back and using what everybody says — all you guys saying the dynasty’s over and they aren’t any good anymore,” he said. “He uses that all week and the guys come out playing really well.”
Whether Saban pushed all the right buttons or players pushed themselves coming out of that players-only meeting, the Tide have been a different team. After beating Ole Miss, they took care of business at Mississippi State, 40-17, and then went on the road to Texas A&M and came back from down a touchdown in the second half to win, 26-20.
Afterward, Saban lauded his team’s poise late in the game — which is not something he could have said the first three weeks of the season. He said he “couldn’t be more proud” of the way they competed.
“For guys to pull themselves up, to overcome adversity and [show] resiliency, this is a great win for our team. … It was an opportunity for this team to sort of show who they are in terms of what kind of team we have, and I think we can have a really, really good team.”
SABAN TRIED TO warn everyone. Before the offensive train wreck at USF — 5 of 15 third downs converted, 4.7 yards per pass, one total touchdown — he harkened back to the team’s offensive struggles in the 2015 season when Jake Coker and Cooper Bateman competed for the starting quarterback job.
“We were sort of struggling on offense, couldn’t find an identity, eventually found an identity and had a really good season,” Saban recalled. “So you keep searching.”
At the time, the comparison seemed like a stretch. For one, Milroe appeared more turnover prone than Coker, and for another, he didn’t have the same caliber line Coker did (see: future pros Cam Robinson and Ryan Kelly). But most importantly, the No. 2 Milroe was handing the ball off to was Jase McClellan, not Derrick Henry. No disrespect to McClellan, who is a solid player, but Henry won the Heisman Trophy that season.
So maybe there was some wishful thinking on Saban’s part. But at least one person saw where he was coming from: Coker. Like this season, Coker was reminded of the nine starters they replaced in 2015 and the early issues that caused. Like this season, Coker was reminded of his own struggles while competing for the starting job — the feeling of looking over your shoulder.
Coker recalled the Sunday night when, after watching film of the loss to Ole Miss and his two interceptions, then-offensive coordinator Kiffin told him he needed to go see Saban. Coker was too angry to be scared about getting called to Saban’s office without a reason.
After the two shared their thoughts on the team, Coker said Saban told him he was the starter and, “You need to make this thing work.”
“I said, ‘Let’s do it,'” he recalled. “I was excited. It was a way to just move forward. It was a freeing feeling knowing that I wasn’t going to get pulled.”
And that feeling extended throughout the team.
“It’s like a judge throwing the gavel down,” Coker said of Saban’s decision, “it’s over with and everybody falls in line and believes that’s the guy.”
Alabama came out the following week and throttled Louisiana-Monroe 34-0. Then came the big test: at No. 8 Georgia.
Coker smiled on the far end of the field in Athens when a pre-game scuffle broke out. “Oh, hell yes,” he thought. “Thank you. You don’t know what you just did.”
Provided ample motivation, Alabama dominated Georgia, 38-10.
“The Georgia game is when the tone was set that ‘OK, we’re back,'” he said. “I don’t think anybody really cared about the rankings whatsoever. I think we knew we’d be there if we just took care of business.”
Maybe it’s not an apple-to-apples comparison, but Coker sees another through-line between 2015 and this season. Just as Georgia’s smack-talk lit a fire under his teammates, he thinks Kiffin’s suggestion that Kevin Steele wasn’t actually calling the defense woke up this year’s squad.
“I know it bothered the team, but I guarantee you it really bothered the coaching staff a lot,” Coker said. “I got a feeling that week of practice they were absolutely just dialed in — if you screwed anything up, you were getting just torn apart.”
Alabama’s defense, which had regressed the last few years, is looking like its old self again, ranking 12th in scoring (16 points per game), third in sacks (26) and eighth in disrupted dropbacks (54).
The offense might not be great yet, but it’s been good enough. Milroe, who said he’s getting better every week, has established himself as a big-play threat. Roughly one-fourth of his pass attempts have traveled 20 or more yards through the air; his 19 such completions rank third nationally. Since getting benched against USF, he’s scored nine touchdowns (six passing, three rushing) and turned the ball over twice.
“It kind of felt like we weren’t there in the beginning of the year, but we’re finally getting that confidence and understanding of how to play together and really how to be just malicious on both sides of the ball,” Coker said.
TO BE CLEAR: Alabama’s still far from perfect.
Just look at Saturday’s 24-21 win over Arkansas. The Crimson Tide sleep-walked through the 11 a.m. kickoff, struggling to run the ball, struggling to stop the run, struggling to do the simple things, like get the timing down on the center-quarterback exchange. By the time they woke up, they were down 6-0. And no sooner than they rattled off 24 unanswered points to take complete control of the game, they let their foot off the gas and gave up back-to-back Razorback touchdowns to make it a one-score game late.
Afterward, an agitated Saban drew a distinction between winning the game and beating the other team. While he said he was happy with the progress the team had made from the start of the season, he wasn’t pleased with a lack of execution and discipline. A face mask penalty by safety Jaylen Key felt symbolic — in a bad way. It was an instance of a player, he said, “putting himself ahead of what’s best for the team and putting yourself in harm’s way of having a chance to win.”
Could they learn from a close call? Saban said noncommittally, “I hope so.”
Offensive lineman Tyler Booker wasn’t pleased with the team’s lack of consistency. What it comes down to, he said, was them losing intensity in the second half and not finishing.
“When you lose attention to detail,” he explained, “you don’t execute as often.”
Reminded of the similarity in tone to the USF win and the reaction it caused, Booker acknowledged a “common theme” because they “shouldn’t have been in that kind of game” in the first place. Against Arkansas, he said, “We let them back in the game.”
“We have to put teams out,” he said.
But Booker wasn’t hitting the panic button yet. Overall, he felt the team was heading in the right direction in recent weeks. The talent’s there. There are flashes of a team that can find a way in a down SEC to make it to Atlanta and play for a conference championship.
If they can compete for 60 minutes, Booker said, “That’s how we get to playing Alabama football.”
“And that’s dominating,” he added.
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Bradford Doolittle
ORLANDO, Fla. — Jeff Kent, who holds the record for home runs by a second baseman, was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday.
Kent, 57, was named on 14 of 16 ballots by the contemporary baseball era committee, two more than he needed for induction.
Just as noteworthy as Kent’s selection were the names of those who didn’t garner enough support, which included all-time home run leader Barry Bonds, 354-game winner Roger Clemens, two MVPs from the 1980s, Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy, and Gary Sheffield, who slugged 509 career homers.
Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield and Dodgers great Fernando Valenzuela were named on fewer than five ballots. According to a new protocol introduced by the Hall of Fame that went into effect with this ballot, players drawing five or fewer votes won’t be eligible the next time their era is considered. They can be nominated again in a subsequent cycle, but if they fall short of five votes again, they will not be eligible for future consideration.
The candidacies of Bonds and Clemens have long been among the most hotly debated among Hall of Fame aficionados because of their association with PEDs. With Sunday’s results, they moved one step closer to what will ostensibly be permanent exclusion from the sport’s highest honor.
If Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield and Valenzuela are nominated when their era comes around in 2031 and fall short of five votes again, it will be their last shot at enshrinement under the current guidelines.
Kent, whose best seasons were with the San Francisco Giants as Bonds’ teammate, continued his longstanding neutral stance on Bonds’ candidacy, declining to offer an opinion on whether or not he believes Bonds should get in.
“Barry was a good teammate of mine,” Kent said. “He was a guy that I motivated and pushed. We knocked heads a little bit. He was a guy that motivated me at times, in frustration, in love, at times both.
“Barry was one of the best players I ever saw play the game, amazing. For me, I’ve always said that. I’ve always avoided the specific answer you’re looking for, because I don’t have one. I don’t. I’m not a voter.”
Kent played 17 seasons in the majors for six different franchises and grew emotional at times as he recollected the different stops in a now-Hall of Fame career that ended in 2008. He remained on the BBWAA ballot for all 10 years of his eligibility after retiring, but topped out at 46.5% in 2023, his last year.
“The time had gone by, and you just leave it alone, and I left it alone,” Kent said. “I loved the game, and everything I gave to the game I left there on the field. This moment today, over the last few days, I was absolutely unprepared. Emotionally unstable.”
A five-time All-Star, Kent was named NL MVP in 2000 as a member of the Giants, who he set a career high with a .334 average while posting 33 homers and 125 RBIs. Kent hit 377 career homers, 351 as a second baseman, a record for the position.
Kent is the 62nd player elected to the Hall who played for the Giants. He also played for Toronto, the New York Mets, Cleveland, Houston and the Dodgers. Now, he’ll play symbolically for baseball’s most exclusive team — those with plaques hanging in Cooperstown, New York.
“I have not walked through the halls of the Hall of Fame,” Kent said. “And that’s going to be overwhelming once I get in there.”
Carlos Delgado was named on nine ballots, the second-highest total among the eight under consideration. Mattingly and Murphy received six votes apiece. All three are eligible to be nominated again when the contemporary era is next considered in 2028.
Next up on the Hall calendar is voting by the BBWAA on this year’s primary Hall of Fame ballot. Those results will be announced on Jan. 20.
Anyone selected through that process will join Kent in being inducted on July 26, 2026, on the grounds of the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown.
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David Hale
Twelve years into the College Football Playoff, the committee may have been tasked with its toughest decision yet.
On one hand, there’s Alabama, the bluest of blue bloods, a team that played the sixth-toughest schedule in the country, with seven wins over FPI top-40 opponents, and whose final loss — the one that put the Tide squarely on the bubble — came in the SEC championship game, while others like Miami and Notre Dame sat at home.
On the other hand, there’s Notre Dame, the most storied program in the sport’s history with a legion of fans from coast to coast. The Irish are playing exceptional football, winning 10 straight all by double digits, and their lone losses, way back in August and early September, came to two other top-tier teams by a combined four points.
Then on the metaphorical third hand is Miami, a team that began the season with fireworks, sagged in the middle, then responded to its No. 18 placement in the first set of rankings by reeling off four straight wins by an average of 27 points per game. Oh, and Miami holds a head-to-head win over Notre Dame, albeit one that came in the first week of the season and that the committee may or may not consider from week to week.
Spread around a few garnishes of Texas, Vanderbilt and BYU on the plate and add a dessert course of a Duke-JMU argument that could result in bumping a Power 4 conference from the playoff entirely and it’s a tough year to be a committee member.
There have been others, of course. In 2014, the committee punted on a tricky Baylor-TCU debate in favor of Ohio State, and the Buckeyes won it all. In 2017, amid a chaotic final week, the committee handed its final bid to Alabama, despite its absence from the SEC championship game, and the Tide went on to win a championship. In 2023, the committee snubbed an undefeated Florida State, because of an injury to QB Jordan Travis, and the Seminoles have gone on to lose 18 of their next 25 games.
The results after a controversial decision always seem to lead to the same conclusion: The committee got things right.
And yet, as the committee so often notes after each rankings release, the results alone don’t tell the whole story. In football, perhaps more than any other sport, the process matters. And the committee’s process, from the outset of that first playoff 12 years ago, has been a mess.
The ultimate verdict of Sunday’s final ranking showcased the disaster vividly.
Step away from the whole process, and the decision to rank Miami ahead of Notre Dame makes perfect sense. They have the same record. Miami won head-to-head. Most rational folks, aligned with neither side, would acknowledge the committee came to a sensible conclusion.
But look at the process and try to follow the committee’s rationale, and it’s like climbing the stairs in an M.C. Escher painting.
In the first ranking, Notre Dame was eight spots ahead of Miami. Both won out, both by big margins, and each week along the way, Notre Dame remained ahead of Miami. Last week, Alabama — fresh off a near disaster in the Iron Bowl — leapfrogged Notre Dame despite the Irish dominating Stanford 49-20. That was a head-scratcher, unless, of course, you believed the minor conspiracy that the committee was setting up a direct comparison between Miami and Notre Dame by having them ranked one right after the other.
And, what do you know, that’s what we got. After BYU lost its conference championship, the Cougars dropped in the rankings — something that didn’t happen to Alabama for a similar blowout defeat, it should be noted — and Notre Dame and Miami were separated by nothing other than the committee’s whims.
1:31
Saban hopes Notre Dame’s snub leads to CFP changes
Nick Saban gives his thoughts on the structure of the College Football Playoff in light of Notre Dame being left out.
So while both sat home on their couches on championship weekend, Miami somehow did enough to push its way into the playoff instead of Notre Dame.
Is it a reasonable conclusion? Yes!
Is it a ridiculous process that got us here? A thousand yeses!
Let’s consider how the committee evaluates teams for a moment. Which variables matter most? We’ve gone from Florida State’s battle against game control in 2014 to Notre Dame’s résumé boasting two quality losses in 2025.
Does head-to-head matter? For five weeks it might not, but in the last week it clearly did.
The committee is supposed to evaluate a school’s entire body of work, but does that mean a September loss can’t be overshadowed by clear and obvious growth throughout a season?
Do conference championships matter? Winning them is supposed to be a factor — though, ask 2023 Florida State about that — so shouldn’t a loss matter, too? A year ago, committee chair Warde Manuel said it might — including docking SMU two spots after a three-point loss to Clemson in the ACC conference championship game, even if it didn’t knock the Mustangs out of the playoff. But Alabama’s 21-point loss Saturday meant nothing.
Ranked wins are great, but of course the committee decides who earns the distinction of being ranked. The eye test is the best argument for one team, the data for another, and no one can be sure which metric matters more, because again, it depends. For a committee composed primarily of former coaches and active ADs, the human element — perceptions, expectations, projections, biases and misunderstandings — loom like a cloud over every mention of strength of record or game control.
Or boil it down to the most basic debate: Are we trying to find the best teams or the most deserving? And how do we even define those two things? From week to week, the answer is a shrug emoji and a Mad Libs of metrics and records pieced together like those magnetic words people put on their refrigerator.
All of this leads to arguments, which is likely a feature of the system, not a bug. Debate is part of the DNA of sports. But ironically, no one seems to contradict the committee more than the committee itself. The case for Team A so often sounds like the mirror image of the case against Team B. Alabama jumped Notre Dame in last week’s rankings after an ugly win over Auburn, but Miami’s dominant victory on the road against a ranked Pitt team made no difference. When Texas A&M needed a Houdini act to beat South Carolina, that wasn’t a knock on the Aggies, the committee chair said, but when Alabama narrowly escaped those same Gamecocks, it was a flaw in the Tide’s résumé. Ranked wins are great — but only if the team was ranked at the time, or maybe if it ends up ranked in the future. Also, the committee does the ranking so, whew.
And when those explanations get parsed by fans in the aftermath of perplexing decisions — Alabama’s “impressive” seven-point win over 5-7 Auburn allowing the Tide to leapfrog Notre Dame after a 29-point Irish win over 4-8 Stanford, for example — the outcome isn’t just disagreements and debate. It’s conspiratorial thinking. It’s a hollowing out of trust in the process. It’s a belief that the deck is stacked ahead of time. And that’s a disservice to the sport, the teams involved, and the committee itself. Good folks work hard and care about their role, but because their process is so immensely flawed, the presumption of nefarious motives isn’t just fodder for the message boards, but increasingly, mainstream thinking.
Imagine for a moment this wasn’t about college football. Imagine instead this was clinical trials for a new drug or a prized astrophysicist trying to explain an anomaly deep in outer space or, heck, assembling a bookshelf you bought from IKEA. Any such endeavor requires not just a result that seems to work, but a process that can be repeated, again and again, by a completely different set of people, before anyone gives it enough credence that a majority of people — even ones who don’t understand the process at all — believe in the work that was done and trust the results provided.
We don’t have to understand Einstein’s theory of relativity to believe in its basic principles. Relativity remains a theory, not a fact, but it is commonly accepted around the world by brilliant scientists and guys watching “Interstellar” at 3 a.m. on cable alike, because we can all appreciate a stringent process, rigorous testing, and an ability to withstand criticism from dissenting voices.
If we can do that for quantum physics, then surely we can do that for a college football playoff, right?
Instead, we’ll continue to argue. That’s OK. The arguments are part of the fun. But at the foundation of those arguments are real people — players, coaches, administrators, support staffs and even the fans. While no result will make everyone happy, the least this sport owes them is a process they can understand.
Way back on Nov. 4, Notre Dame was 6-2 with a three-point loss to Miami on its résumé. The committee believed the Irish were the No. 10 team in the country.
On that same date, Miami was 6-2 with a three-point win over Notre Dame on its résumé. The committee believed the Canes were the No. 18 team in the country.
This isn’t complicated math, but just for clarity’s sake: Five weeks ago, these two teams had the same record, Miami had a head-to-head win, and the committee believed Notre Dame was eight spots better. That would certainly seem to indicate a sincere and strong belief that, the Week 1 result be damned, the Irish were clearly the better team overall.
So, what has happened since then?
Notre Dame is 4-0 with a win over a ranked team and an average margin of 38 points per game. Miami is 4-0 with a win over a ranked team and an average margin of 27.5 points per game.
And yet, when the committee put its rankings together this time around, Miami is one spot ahead of Notre Dame.
There is every reason to be suspicious of the committee’s initial evaluation of these two teams. Perhaps those Nov. 4 rankings were a mistake. But the committee waited five weeks to correct that mistake, and during that span, the Irish absolutely demoralized everyone they played — including two teams that Miami also played, but Notre Dame won by more.
Nothing that has happened between the first rankings and the last suggests Notre Dame got worse relative to Miami, and yet a full nine spots in the rankings have shifted between the two.
If this was all about the committee playing the long game, using the opening scenes to set up a dramatic showdown between Miami and Notre Dame in the final act, then kudos for creating some exceptional TV.
As far as offering an honest weekly evaluation of college football teams, however, this was an absurd farce that served as a slap in the face to coach Marcus Freeman and his team and leaves us without the chance to see arguably the best player in the country, Jeremiyah Love, in the biggest games of the year.
Typically the difference between a No. 6 and a No. 7 ranking is negligible. Both get a home game in the first round, both have a good shot to advance.
This year, however, it’s a little different.
Thanks to the ACC’s pratfall of a season, two Group of 5 teams made the final field. That means both the No. 5 seed and the No. 6 seed get to play teams from outside the big-boy conferences, while the No. 7 seed lands a genuine contender on the docket in Round 1.
The loser of this lottery is Texas A&M, and that’s a pretty tough take to defend.
Let’s look at the résumés.
Team A: No. 10 in FPI, best win vs. FPI No. 3, loss to FPI No. 13, No. 3 strength of record, five wins vs. bowl-eligible teams, six wins vs. FPI top 40
Team B: No. 12 in FPI, best win vs. FPI No. 15, loss to SP+ No. 6, No 6 strength of record, four wins vs. bowl-eligible teams, four wins vs. FPI top 40
They’re close, but the edge in nearly every metric is with Team A. That’s Texas A&M.
Or how about this: Against five common opponents, A&M has a scoring edge of 2 points, including a far better win over LSU, their best common foe.
Is it splitting hairs? Of course, but that’s the committee’s job. And the results of that hair-splitting are the difference between Ole Miss getting a rematch with a Tulane team it beat by 35 in September or facing off against a red-hot Miami eager to prove it belonged in the field.
3. Greg Sankey
On Saturday, the SEC commissioner was asked to state his case for his league’s bubble teams. He offered an inclusive take.
“I view that there are seven of our teams at the conclusion of the 12-game season over 14 weeks that merit inclusion in the playoff,” Sankey said.
And yet, here we are, with just a measly five SEC teams in the field, including one getting a first-round bye and three hosting home games. It’s a slap in the face!
Truth is, Vanderbilt was quite good this year, with a strength of record ahead of both Notre Dame and Miami, and the world would simply be a better place with Diego Pavia in the playoff.
Truth is, if the goal of the playoff is to seed it with the best teams — the teams capable of beating other elite teams and making a run for a championship — then Texas had as good a case as anyone, with head-to-head wins over Oklahoma, Vandy and Texas A&M.
Heck, compare these two résumés:
Team A: Three losses, the worst loss to FPI No. 53 by eight and three wins vs. FPI top-15 teams
Team B: Three losses, the worst loss to FPI No. 74 by 14 and two wins vs. FPI top-15 teams
Team A also has a 17-point win over a team that beat Team B.
So, who would you take?
Don’t ask Sankey. His answer is both. But Team A is Texas and Team B is Alabama, and the Longhorns have looked markedly better over the past month of the season than the flailing Tide.
You have to hand it to Manny Diaz. The man can make a coherent argument for a lost cause.
“We played 10 Power 4 teams. Comparing us to James Madison, for example, who had a fantastic season — their strength of schedule is in the 100s. Ours is in the 50s. Seven wins in our conference. Seven Power 4 wins as opposed to zero Power 4 wins. The ACC champions. … I’m watching them play Troy at home [in the Sun Belt championship] and Troy had a backup quarterback in for most of the game, right? And it’s a three-point game until, really, the last few minutes of the game when they were able to pull away. They won the game and their conference, but you just can’t compare going through the Sun Belt this year — the Sun Belt has been a really good conference in years past, but most of their top teams are just having down years. They’re not challenged the way they would’ve been going through a normal Sun Belt schedule. Then you start comparing strength of schedule — if you simply go into wins and losses, you have to look at who you’re playing against. That’s the whole point of why you play a Power 4 schedule. There’s a reason these coaches are all leaving to take Power 4 jobs. There’s a recognition that’s where the best competition is.”
That was no small jab at JMU, whose coach, Bob Chesney, is leaving for a Power 4 job at UCLA.
It also probably gets Diaz removed from Sun Belt commissioner Keith Gill’s Christmas card list, which given that ACC commissioner Jim Phillips can’t be pleased with Duke torpedoing his conference’s reputation by winning the league with five losses, is going to leave a lot of extra space on Diaz’s mantle this holiday season.
Alabama lost a championship game by 21 points to a top-four team. It didn’t budge in the rankings.
BYU lost a championship game by 27 points to a top-four team. It dropped a spot.
Did it ultimately matter for the Cougars? No. They weren’t sniffing the playoff unless they beat Texas Tech. But on principle, they ought to be angry about the double standard.
Moreover, BYU was the most overlooked team all season — the one that had a good case, a comparable résumé, and virtually no one outside of Provo cheerleading for them.
Which, oddly enough, feels about the same as last year, when BYU had a perfectly good case alongside Alabama, Miami, Ole Miss and South Carolina, and no one seemed to bat an eye when they finished a distant 17th — behind Clemson, even — in the committee’s final ranking.
Also angry this week: Virginia Cavaliers (10-3, No. 19 and dropped two spots — more than any other conference championship game loser, despite playing the closest conference championship game), Tennessee Volunteers, LSU Tigers, Illinois Fighting Illini and Missouri Tigers (all 8-4, all unranked, and all with a better strength of record than the Arizona Wildcats or the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets), Lane Kiffin (astonished the committee didn’t value his departure more).
College football’s championship weekend delivered a mix of compelling drama and blowouts.
In Atlanta, Georgia dominated Alabama and won the SEC for a second year in a row. The Bulldogs held the Tide to 209 total yards and locked up a first-round bye. UGA, the No. 3 seed, will play the winner of the matchup of No. 6 Ole Miss vs. No. 11 Tulane in the Allstate Sugar Bowl.
It was a similar story in the Big 12 where Texas Tech broke open the game with BYU in the second half. The Red Raiders forced four turnovers in the 34-7 win. Texas Tech is the No. 4 seed and will face either No. 5 Oregon or No. 12 James Madison in the Capital One Orange Bowl.
The real drama was reserved for the Big Ten and ACC championships. Indiana won its first conference title since 1967 and took down No. 1 Ohio State. The Hoosiers will be the No. 1 seed while the Buckeyes fell just one spot to No. 2 The undefeated Hoosiers will have their first playoff game at the Rose Bowl presented by Prudential against the winner of the No. 8 Oklahoma-No. 9 Alabama matchup. Ohio State faces the winner of No. 10 Miami vs. No. 7 Texas A&M in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl.
Duke‘s upset of Virginia in the ACC title game opened the door for two Group of 5 teams — Tulane (which won the American) and James Madison (Sun Belt winner).
After months of rankings, seedings and countless debates, we have a 12-team bracket that brings about plenty of enticing questions and intriguing possibilities.
Can Oregon, Indiana, Texas A&M or Texas Tech bring home its first national title? Can Ohio State repeat? Will a Group of 5 team get its first-ever CFP win?
Here are our full picks for the 12-team College Football Playoff.
Andrea Adelson
First round
Oregon 55, JMU 13
Bama 20, Oklahoma 17
Ole Miss 35, Tulane 14
Miami 27, Texas A&M 24
Quarterfinals
Oregon 35, Texas Tech 30
Indiana 30, Alabama 20
Georgia 40, Ole Miss 24
Ohio State 24, Miami 21
Semifinals
Ohio State 27, Georgia 24
Indiana 35, Oregon 31
National title game
Ohio State 21, Indiana 20
Kyle Bonagura
First round
Oregon 49, James Madison 24
Texas A&M 31, Miami 24
Ole Miss 38, Tulane 24
Alabama 31, Oklahoma 28
Quarterfinals
Texas Tech 28, Oregon 27
Georgia 35, Ole Miss 21
Ohio State 24, Texas A&M 14
Indiana 35, Alabama 27
Semifinals
Ohio State 24, Georgia 17
Indiana 28, Texas Tech 24
National title game
Indiana 17, Ohio State 10
Bill Connelly
First round
Oregon 41, James Madison 24
Oklahoma 27, Alabama 17
Ole Miss 35, Tulane 20
Texas A&M 31, Miami 28
Quarterfinals
Texas Tech 38, Oregon 34
Indiana 30, Oklahoma 7
Georgia 27, Ole Miss 23
Ohio State 24, Texas A&M 13
Semifinals
Texas Tech 27, Indiana 23
Georgia 17, Ohio State 16
National title game
Texas Tech 28, Georgia 20
David Hale
First round
Oregon 35, JMU 13
Ole Miss 48, Tulane 24
Alabama 17, Oklahoma 10
Miami 27, Texas A&M 21
Quarterfinals
Texas Tech 24, Oregon 21
Indiana 20, Alabama 10
Georgia 30, Ole Miss 21
Ohio State 34, Miami 24
Semifinals
Indiana 30, Texas Tech 28
Georgia 27, Ohio State 24
National title game
Georgia 24, Indiana 20
Eli Lederman
First round
Oregon 38, James Madison 10
Ole Miss 31, Tulane 20
Alabama 21, Oklahoma 10
Texas A&M 38, Miami 31
Quarterfinals
Oregon 24, Texas Tech 17
Indiana 23, Alabama 10
Georgia 41, Ole Miss 30
Ohio State 30, Texas A&M 17
Semifinals
Indiana 20, Oregon 17
Georgia 27, Ohio State 20
National title game
Georgia 31, Indiana 17
Max Olson
First round
Oregon 34, James Madison 17
Alabama 13, Oklahoma 10
Ole Miss 38, Tulane 14
Texas A&M 27, Miami 24
Quarterfinals
Texas Tech 27, Oregon 20
Indiana 24, Alabama 17
Georgia 41, Ole Miss 31
Ohio State 27, Texas A&M 17
Semifinals
Indiana 17, Texas Tech 16
Georgia 35, Ohio State 31
National title game
Georgia 31, Indiana 20
Adam Rittenberg
First round
Oregon 38, James Madison 13
Ole Miss 34, Tulane 16
Alabama 20, Oklahoma 17
Miami 31, Texas A&M 28
Quarterfinals
Texas Tech 23, Oregon 20
Indiana 24, Alabama 16
Georgia 31, Ole Miss 21
Ohio State 27, Miami 20
Semifinals
Indiana 20, Texas Tech 17
Ohio State 19, Georgia 16
National title game
Ohio State 24, Indiana 20
Mark Schlabach
First round
Oregon 51, JMU 17
Alabama 17, Oklahoma 14
Ole Miss 42, Tulane 20
Miami 28, Texas A&M 20
Quarterfinals
Texas Tech 35, Oregon 31
Indiana 31, Alabama 14
Georgia 35, Ole Miss 28
Ohio State 24, Miami 17
Semifinals
Ohio State 27, Georgia 24
Indiana 42, Texas Tech 38
National title game
Indiana 24, Ohio State 20
Jake Trotter
First round
Oregon 38, James Madison 10
Oklahoma 17, Alabama 16
Ole Miss 30, Tulane 14
Miami 27, Texas A&M 23
Quarterfinals
Texas Tech 25, Oregon 17
Indiana 24, Oklahoma 13
Georgia 35, Ole Miss 14
Ohio State 21, Miami 13
Semifinals
Indiana 19, Texas Tech 17
Ohio State 16, Georgia 14
National title game
Ohio State 21, Indiana 20
Paolo Uggetti
First round
Oklahoma 21, Alabama 17
Oregon 38, JMU 14
Miami 27, Texas A&M 24
Ole Miss 31, Tulane 21
Quarterfinals
Indiana 34, Oklahoma 20
Oregon 24, Texas Tech 21
Georgia 21, Ole Miss 17
Ohio State 27, Miami 20
Semifinals
Indiana 23, Oregon 20
Georgia 24, Ohio State 17
National title game
Indiana 21, Georgia 17
Dave Wilson
First round
Oregon 44, James Madison 13
Texas A&M 27, Miami 17
Ole Miss 31, Tulane 24
Oklahoma 23, Alabama 17
Quarterfinals
Texas Tech 24, Oregon 20
Georgia 44, Ole Miss 17
Ohio State 21, Texas A&M 20
Indiana 24, Oklahoma 10
Semifinals
Georgia 27, Ohio State 17
Indiana 24, Texas Tech 17
National title game
Georgia, 17, Indiana 14
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