Kirk Herbstreit projects how the Playoff committee will handle the No. 4 spot this week
By Keith Farner
Published:
On ESPN’s “College GameDay” on Saturday, analyst Kirk Herbstreit said an Alabama loss to LSU would knock the Crimson Tide out of the top four rankings in the College Football Playoff. But after all of the events of the college football weekend unfolded, those thoughts changed.
“The game unfolds. They lose. They didn’t give up. They didn’t go away. Kept battling,” Herbstreit said on the latest episode of “The College Football Podcast with Herbie and Pollack.” “As the dust settles and Penn State loses, you start to think about where does Alabama fall? Because they lost to LSU at home, do you put them at No. 7, No. 8, or No. 9? No, you’re not going to do that. Where are they? No. 5? No. 6? They’re not going to drop in the rankings probably further than No. 5. Now they’re at No. 5.”
This kind of dialogue has played out the last couple of days with college football fans around the country. The interesting thing about this week’s reveal on Tuesday night is it will show how the CFP committee views the different teams involved in the discussion.
“You could argue the committee puts them at No. 4,” Herbstreit continued. “I think Georgia could go to No. 4. Then you could knock Georgia at No. 4 and say, ‘Well, they had that loss to South Carolina at home. That’s a really bad loss. Alabama didn’t have that bad a loss. Why is Alabama going to go behind Georgia? Just depends on how you want to view these things. I put Georgia at No. 4. I had Bama at No. 5, and I moved Minnesota all the way up to No. 6 after their win against Penn State.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
