Nick Saban made the case for Alabama and other multi-loss SEC teams to get to the College Football Playoff during his weekly appearance on the Pat McAfee Show on Friday.
When the CFP selection committee handed down its penultimate rankings earlier this week, it did so with an acknowledgment that teams who were idle during Week 15 would not be moved. That meant that Alabama would get the final CFP spot if SMU won its ACC title fight with Clemson.
But, if SMU were to lose, what would the committee do? A 3-loss Clemson team would get the automatic bid and SMU would be sitting with 2 losses wondering about its future.
Warde Manuel, the committee’s chair, said that SMU — which is currently in the field at No. 8 — could fall out of the field if it loses. That has led some to question why SMU would even play the game.
Should SMU lose, the debate will rage about whether a 2-loss SMU or a 3-loss Alabama deserves the final CFP spot.
McAfee asked Saban about it on Friday.
“I do think that strength of schedule, and what teams did you beat — how many good teams did you beat — I think that speaks volumes about what kind of team you’re capable of being,” Saban said. “I think there are a lot of ups and downs in college football. Probably the system has created that to some degree because it’s more difficult to be consistent, but I don’t think we want to do anything in this playoff situation that is going to (encourage) people not to play a tough schedule.
“I think we want people to play a tough schedule because we want good games — people want to see good games. Well, you want people to play in those games. You want them to schedule some tough nonconference games. I don’t think we want to enhance people who won 10 or 11 teams that didn’t play 1 top-25 team, or didn’t beat 1 top-25 team.”
ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) has SMU’s schedule rated as the 75th-toughest in the country this season. Alabama’s is 17th. SMU is ninth in ESPN’s strength of record metric while Alabama is 10th.
As it stands, SMU does not have a win over a team that is currently ranked in the committee’s Top 25. The same can be said of Indiana, which was ranked No. 9 by the committee and missed out on the Big Ten title game because of a loss to Ohio State.
Alabama has 3 wins over current Top 25 teams.
At the time of publication, FanDuel is only accepting bets on 2 teams to make the CFP — Alabama and SMU. Both are -430 to make the field. Both are +300 to miss the field. SMU is a 2.5-point favorite over Clemson.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
