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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Although one has to think that a copy of the latest rankings by the College Football Playoff Committee, which has the University of Alabama fifth, might have ended up in every player’s locker, the players were saying exactly what Nick Saban wanted them to Wednesday.
“We don’t pay attention to the rankings,” junior cornerback Cyrus Jones said. “That only means something at the end of the season when you don’t have any more games to play. We just look forward to the next challenge.”
Alabama’s next challenge, of course, is undefeated Mississippi State (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS). The Bulldogs (8-0, 5-0 SEC) are ranked first and can all but wrap up the SEC West with a victory Saturday.
However, if the Crimson Tide (8-1, 5-1) wins it’ll have the inside track on representing the division in next month’s SEC Championship Game.
“I didn’t even really know what we were in the poll and it really doesn’t matter at all to me or our team or our players because it’s about the game that we play,” Saban said during the weekly SEC teleconference with reporters. “If you don’t have success in the games that you play, the poll’s not going to matter.
“We have to play really, really good teams in our league and we have a couple of really, really good teams that we have to play to finish the season, starting with the team that we play this week. The emphasis is, if you have success against the teams that you have to play, all those things are going to take care of themselves.
“The emphasis has to be on how we play, how we execute, preparing the right way for this particular game, this particular team, and give ourselves the best chance to be successful in this game. So none of that really matters.”
Christopher Walsh has covered Alabama football since 2004 and is the author of 19 books. In his free time, he writes about college football.