3 ways Alabama’s No. 3 CFP ranking was an absolute gift

The College Football Playoff selection committee’s initial rankings felt like an SEC love fest, and in its attempt to course correct for Week 11 only made things worse. The placement of Alabama on both lists is all the evidence you need to see the committee is just doing the same thing it did last year, when it shoved the Crimson Tide in ahead of Notre Dame.

No. 3 Alabama is the highest-ranked two-loss program in the CFP era. Both losses came to ranked opponents, but one in particular was a 16-point drubbing to a lower-ranked Tennessee team that the committee has determined is still worse than Alabama. The Volunteers (7-2) are currently No. 8 after feeling disrespected with their initial placement and taking it out on Kentucky (No. 11, for now).

The committee has gifted Alabama a ranking that feels undeserved. Not to say the Tide aren’t a playoff team, period, they just are not a top-five program. Here’s how the committee’s malpractice is going to shake things out.

Barring a total collapse, Alabama is insulated from elimination

Alabama’s last three regular season games are all cupcakes. If the Tide find a way to lose to any of them, they should (in theory) be dropped from the CFP field altogether.

• Nov. 14, at Vanderbilt
• Nov. 21, vs. Chattanooga
• Nov. 28, vs. Auburn

However, that would require the committee to do something that would completely undermine its process and confirm there is no objective method. It would have to move Alabama down an inconceivable number of spots, first, if it lost to Vanderbilt in Week 11. It gets worse if the Tide win and then have to remain at No. 3 (barring a Georgia or Utah loss) and then the upset of the century happens against Chattanooga (a matchup that should be illegal at this point).

If Alabama hasn’t lost by the time it plays Auburn, it will be locked into the playoff, even with a loss in the Iron Bowl. The committee would just point to Auburn’s win over then-No. 1 Georgia and count the Iron Bowl as a good loss for Alabama. Another three-loss team would be admitted to the playoff and, truly, nothing matters anymore, because the 24-team bracket is right around the corner.

Two losses used to cost teams nearly everything, but not Alabama

Outside of Alabama’s potential to lose another game down the stretch, it’s just ridiculous that the Tide have been ranked No. 3 in the country with multiple losses already. It doesn’t matter if one of them was to then-No. 1 Georgia. Those Bulldogs lost to Auburn and are only back to the No. 1 ranking by means of the committee severely punishing Miami for losing to then-No. 11 Notre Dame without Hurricanes star wideout Malachi Toney.

Alabama’s other loss was a 16-point drubbing by Tennessee. Yes, the Volunteers were underrated in the initial rankings but the committee is always right, no? Even with its correction in Week 11, the committee still thinks Tennessee is worse than the Alabama it beat. Like Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti posted on X Thursday, it doesn’t appear that bad losses matter anymore. In the committee’s eyes Tennessee is only just good enough for the Top 10 now and with Alabama all the way at No. 3, getting the doors blown off by the Volunteers when they weren’t as good isn’t being weighed the same as Miami dropping six spots for losing to so-called easy-schedule Notre Dame.

SEC is guaranteed at least four teams in CFP

With Alabama being ranked so high and there being little chance it stumbles in the last three regular season games, every other SEC team ranked below the Tide and sitting on the bubble essentially has a safety net, should they win out themselves. That means No. 6 Texas, which has two bad losses to Oklahoma and Florida, No. 8 Tennessee, which lost to Texas and South Carolina, and No. 11 Kentucky, which lost to both Alabama and Tennessee, would all be given the benefit of the doubt — even in the event non-SEC contenders like Texas Tech, Wake Forest and Houston win out.

It’s another example of the committee (taking cues from the AP voters, really) just arbitrarily making the SEC this invincible conference because it keeps cannibalizing itself. That same benefit wasn’t given to the Pac-12 all those years ago. Nor did the Big 12 receive it. The pattern has held ever since the 12-team bracket was born.

This becomes a branding exercise, and the CFP will insert SEC teams to fill the gaps where the Big Ten has come up short (a la Ohio State’s post-Julian Sayin injury collapse and Oregon’s early-season slide). The committee just had to lay the groundwork so it could point to the initial rankings and say, “These teams were good then and they’re still good now, we can’t just drop them out because there would be too many SEC teams.”