Considering it wound up being incredibly easy for the College Football Playoff selection committee to pick a top 4 to play in the national semifinals, the only real debate following Sunday’s announcement was how it chose to rank and seed the tournament contenders.

And from an Alabama and SEC perspective, the Crimson Tide’s No. 2 spot looks and feels about right. At 12-1 and the SEC champs, Alabama is slotted just behind undefeated Clemson and ahead of No. 3 Michigan State and No. 4 Oklahoma.

Clemson in the top spot is nearly impossible to argue with, even if you believe the Tide is a better team and will take down the Tigers if they meet. Clemson is the only unbeaten team in the mix and finished the season with three top 10 victories against Notre Dame, Florida State and North Carolina. The ACC may be top heavy with some bad teams rounding out the conference slate, but there’s no arguing that Clemson took care of business.

From there it gets a bit murkier, but the Tide seems to have a solid argument for the No. 2 spot. Alabama has run right over opponents since suffering its only loss to Ole Miss in September. The Rebels finished No. 12 in the final regular season rankings, making it a respectable loss, especially when one considers it was a fluke play on a batted ball that helped Ole Miss win in Tuscaloosa.

Bama didn’t wind up with any huge wins comparable to Clemson’s triumphs over Notre Dame and Florida State, but the Tide opened the season with a convincing victory against Wisconsin and continued to rack up dominating wins against solid opponents such as LSU, Texas A&M and Florida. The SEC West didn’t turn out to be the juggernaut it was once thought to be, but Alabama’s ability to run all over teams while shutting down some of the best running backs in college football was the reason it rose to No. 2 in the rankings and never gave up that spot.

Comparatively, it’s hard to argue either Michigan State, nor Oklahoma should have taken the second spot from the Tide, though both certainly earned their way into the top 4.

The Spartans finished 12-1 and could boast wins against No. 15 Oregon, No. 14 Michigan, No. 7 Ohio State and No. 5 Iowa. But Michigan State also had a bad loss to a 5-7 Nebraska team that lost to both Illinois and Purdue.

Similarly, Oklahoma picked up a non-conference win at Tennessee before taking down the rest of the Big 12 contenders with wins against No. 11 TCU, No. 16 Oklahoma State and No. 17 Baylor. But the Sooners lost its Red River rivalry game to a 5-7 Texas team.

Taking into account the number of wins against ranked opponents, it wouldn’t have been outlandish to have either the Spartans or the Sooners ranked ahead of Alabama, but there’s certainly no sense of injustice with the four teams seeded the way they are.

Slipping Oklahoma into the No. 4 spot kept the Sooners from enjoying something of a home field advantage in Dallas while the committee chose to reward the teams who don’t have a bad loss with the top two spots. The system is still far from perfect, but given the information at hand it’s hard for fans of Alabama or anyone else to argue too much with the way it turned out.