Alabama football is going to the College Football Playoff again, and although it may be controversial here are three reasons the Tide deserve their spot.
Everything was going as planned for the Alabama Crimson Tide entering Week 13. The Tide had rolled through the SEC West again and had one game remaining between them and another SEC Championship. On that day Auburn got the better of them and because of that Alabama was forced to sit at home and watch the Tigers play for (and lose) the SEC Championship.
That put the SEC into a weird set of circumstances. Georgia was a lock to make the Playoff. The Bulldogs had one loss, but had beaten that team in the SEC Championship Game and claimed the conference title. Auburn, who now sits at three losses, had no chance of making the to four at all. There had never been a two-loss team in the Playoff, so a three-loss squad was never going to have a shot.
Then there was Alabama. The team that had played in each of the last two College Football Playoff National Championship Games was somewhat controversially included in the field. There’s no question that the Tide were one of the four best teams in the country, regardless of what some have written on Sunday.
Here are three reasons that the committee was right to include the Alabama Crimson Tide in the College Football Playoff.
The College Football Playoff committee has made it known that conference championships are a big deal. Alabama missed out on the opportunity to claim the SEC title when they fell to Auburn in the Iron Bowl to end the season.
UCF was the only undefeated team in college football this season. The Knights don’t play in a Power 5 conference and were never truly in the running for one of the four Playoff spots. That left several teams, all with at least one loss, with what was supposed to be an even chance at earning a Playoff bid.
Many thought Alabama would be spurned from the Playoff because they weren’t a conference champion. That rule has been one of the most heavily criticized aspects of the Playoff since it was introduced in 2014. That’s why Ohio State jumped TCU and Baylor that season and the precedent that was cited for the case against the Tide.
What if the best four teams aren’t all conference champions? What if the upper tier of the SEC is so good that even one of the four best teams in the nation took a loss on the road in a close game? The College Football Playoff let the eye test trump the “process” and they got it right.
2. Alabama has the “best” loss
The Auburn Tigers entered Championship Saturday as the No. 2 team in the nation. That’s the only team in the country that was able to take down the Crimson Tide. It doesn’t take much math to deduce that only one team, No. 1 Clemson, was regarded more highly than Auburn entering the weekend.
Now, there’s no such thing as a “good” loss. Alabama wouldn’t be in this situation at all if they’d found a way to beat Auburn in the Iron Bowl. However, the Iron Bowl loss shouldn’t be a Playoff eliminator.
Just look at the other teams that were vying for Playoff spots over the weekend. Clemson fell to Syracuse (4-8), Miami fell to Pittsburgh (5-7) and Ohio State was obliterated by Iowa (7-5) by a final score of 55-24. Alabama lost to one of the best teams in the nation by two points in a rivalry game.
The committee truly looked at the full body of work and recognized that Alabama’s resume, even without a conference championship, is playoff worthy. They have one loss, not two, and it came at the hands of one of the hottest teams in the country.
3. They said no to recency bias
The blind resume is best known for its frequent appearances leading up to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. The concept is straightforward enough, strip away the names and just look at the numbers. That’s a nice theory, but it can’t be applied here. The committee knows exactly which names are on the board and no matter how hard they try, they’re only human.
Every member of the committee knows what Nick Saban has done at Alabama. They know he’s created a juggernaut that reloads rather than rebuilds. They know that the Crimson Tide have played in two of the three College Football Playoff National Championship Games.
It would have been hard to fault committee for the suffering from recency bias. Just look at the Heisman trophy race this year. Lamar Jackson has produced a similar if not superior statistical season to his Heisman winning campaign from a year ago, but he’s not even being mentioned among the front-runners for the award. No matter how hard we try and eliminate it, recency bias makes us inherently want different.
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It’s not 2017 Alabama’s fault that 2016 Alabama and 2015 Alabama were elite teams and they shouldn’t be judged against those squads. It doesn’t matter how this year’s team compares to last year’s team. What matters is whether or not Alabama has earned a spot in the Playoff. They deserved to get in, and they were rewarded.