Playoff scenarios for Alabama, LSU start with getting a win Saturday night

Another year, another Alabama-LSU matchup.

We at Saturday Down South hardly need to sell you, the internet college football fan, on the Alabama-LSU rivalry. Even if you hold a fervent anti-SEC bias, you’re probably aware of the importance of this particular football game. Since 2007 – the year Nick Saban came to Alabama – the SEC’s Western Division representative has been the winner of this game in every season save two (Auburn, 2010 and 2013).

And there’s more. There’s LSU’s lingering hatred for Nick Saban, even though he’s been gone from Baton Rouge more than a decade now and has actually been at Alabama longer than he was at LSU. There’s all that NFL talent on the field. There is the vibrance and vitriol associated with both teams’ fan bases.

Of course, there are also national implications. Once again both teams enter the game ranked in the top 10, with all their preseason goals – division, conference, playoff, national title – still right there in front of them.

So, in an effort to map out the next month for everyone, here are the CFP scenarios for both Alabama and LSU after Saturday night.

If LSU wins …
The easiest of the two options. The Tigers are undefeated and first in the SEC West, and the path to a conference and national title is already laid out for them. In essence, beat Alabama and stay in the hunt.

It’s slightly more complicated than that, of course. Assuming they make it out of Tuscaloosa, the Tigers are still facing a November that includes Arkansas (shut LSU out last year), Ole Miss (in Oxford … and don’t worry, we’ll get to them in a minute) and A&M (possibly alive after Kyler Murray’s insertion into the lineup). This could all be a bloody mess by the time we make it to December.

Still, LSU’s path to a CFP berth is fairly simple as of this moment: Just keep winning, and you’ll be there.

If Alabama wins …
Here’s the more complicated question: Can Alabama make the CFP without any outside intervention?

The Tide’s path should be as simple as LSU’s. Bama has a (slightly) easier road in November than LSU, with a road game in Starkville and one at Auburn left on the slate. As of right now, Alabama is ranked No. 7 in the country, while advanced metrics have them ranked as high as second. If they beat LSU, they will own three victories over top-10 conference opponents (at the time they played, anyway), two of them on the road. And they are currently passing the eye test for many as “the team that’s playing the best right now.”

And yet, unless Ole Miss loses, Alabama could still boast all those virtues and be a team that didn’t even win its own division.

The larger question is how the CFP will set up. There’s sure to be some shocking outcomes the next four weeks, but here’s what we can presume for now. Emphasis on for now.

• We’re pretty sure Ohio State is going to be in the playoff. They’re the defending national champs and should finish the season undefeated and mostly untried, although Michigan State and Michigan might have something to say about that.
•  It’s safe to assume Clemson will be there.  The Tigers have nobody left on their schedule outside of Florida State that can really challenge them. FSU, staggering a bit right now, might not be able to challenge them, either. Clemson has to be happy that Notre Dame keeps winning, because that’s a nice win on their resume
•  Almost certainly, one of the Big 12 unbeaten – Baylor, Oklahoma State and TCU – will run the table. After being left out last year, there was be major howling if an unbeaten Big 12 team got left out this year.

So … that leaves one spot. Let’s say we get to the end of the year and the SEC’s nightmare has played out. That leaves us with one-loss Alabama, sitting there without so much as a division crown to its name, and two-loss Ole Miss  with an ugly loss at Memphis on its sheet.  (I’m conceding their win over Florida in Atlanta).

If you’re the committee, do you take that Alabama team? That Ole Miss team? One-loss Stanford?

We shall see.

Will Heath

Will Heath is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers SEC football.