College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night on ESPN, and one of the biggest surprises was that Alabama was ranked No. 2 overall.

It’s no surprise that Alabama is in the top 4, necessarily, but the 1-loss Tide being ranked ahead of undefeated Michigan State did raise some eyebrows.

So, what went into the committee’s decision to put the Tide at No. 2? New CFP chair Gary Barta explained what the members of the committee liked about Alabama:

“Right away, Georgia was a clear No. 1,” Barta said. “A fair amount of conversation was had about Alabama — where they’ve come from, where they’ve been, who they’ve played and beaten (Mississippi, Mississippi State), how well they’re playing. There was a lot of consensus for Alabama to be No. 2. Then after that, it became, from 3-9, we probably spent a few hours yesterday and this morning working through 3-9 because there were several different ways to approach it.”

Plenty of fans are calling the ranking SEC bias, but if Alabama loses, the Tide will fall out of the Playoff picture, it would seem.

So, we’ll see how long Nick Saban’s squad can hold on to that No. 2 spot as we enter the stretch run of the 2021 season.