Kirk Herbstreit shares thoughts on LSU, Georgia and Alabama's Playoff chances after second committee rankings
In 2017, the SEC became the first conference to send two teams (Alabama, Georgia) to the College Football Playoff’s field of four. It could certainly happen again in 2019, but Kirk Herbstreit thinks the Crimson Tide could be on the outside looking in when the postseason field is set.
“It would be hard to imagine (Georgia) winning the SEC Championship and not being in,” Herbstreit during ESPN’s Tuesday night broadcast of the latest rankings reveal. “It’s also tough to imagine LSU losing in Atlanta and not being in. Their resume is already more impressive than anybody there. If they win out the rest of their games, I don’t want to see it doesn’t matter what LSU does in Atlanta, but based on what they’ve done up to this point, regardless, they’re getting in.”
The Dawgs have regular-season games against Auburn, Texas A&M and Georgia Tech remaining. UGA needs one more SEC win or a Florida loss to Missouri on Saturday to clinch the SEC East. Alabama, meanwhile, needs some help to get in the SEC Championship Game. Herbstreit speculated the Tide might need help to sneak into the CFP a la 2017.
“There’s not a long way for Alabama to go, maybe that game at Jordan-Hare (will get them) a quality win, but there’s not much farther they can go,” Herbstreit said of No. 5 UA.
Georgia wins SEC, LSU and Georgia are in. Bama is out. LSU wins the SEC, Georgia is out and an 11-1 Bama will get in also. Pretty simple. The National Championship game this year is in the Super Dome. The last time LSU played in the National Championship was in the Super Dome. And that year LSU beat Bama in Tuscaloosa. I just can’t recall who won the Championship that year.
Vanderbilt
Anchors down.
Mostly agree. There’s a possibility that a one loss PAC12 Champion (Oregon) or one loss BIG12 Champion can jump them. 12-1 Champ or 11-1 non-champ with only ranked win vs Auburn?
Ya I agree with this. If Alabama has LSU’s resume they could make it in with one loss and no conf championship. But Alabama will only have one good win this year if they beat Auburn. The only way I see Alabama making it is if almost every other conf champ has 2 losses
Are we forgetting Oregon?
If Auburn beats Georgia Oregon makes the College Football playoff.
It’s not that simple at all. I think there are multiple scenarios where LSU goes undefeated but Bama is still left out. Remember there are 2 undefeated Big10 teams and Penn St has one loss. It’s not unlikely that an undefeated Minnesota will play an undefeated Ohio State. If OSU wins (the safer bet) than they are in and Minnesota is out. But if Minnesota wins I’d say a 1-loss OSU is a lock over a 1-loss Alabama. Penn St & Ohio St still have a game to play, so there is even a scenario in which there are three 1-loss Big10 teams (all 3 of which would have – on paper – higher quality wins than Bama).
Still a lot of football to be played, but I think Alabama is going to need multiple good football teams to lose in order to make it into the group of 4.
No way Minnesota makes it in unless they go undefeated
They wouldn’t because they’re Minnesota, but it would really be a travesty to take 1-loss Alabama with 1 good win over 1-loss Minnesota who would have beaten 3 ranked teams at that point.
I would look at all Minnesota’s wins though and to be honest they aren’t that impressive they’ve played close games with a lot of bad opponents
The problem is that the committee has said in the past that they don’t look at margin of victory. If that’s to be believed, then those close wins shouldn’t factor in any more than their blowout wins in the Big 10. But take everything the committee says with a grain of salt.
Where is Smoky in all of this?
I agree with you, if LSU wins the SEC championship they are in and UGA is out but Bama would need a lot of help to get in. you would possibly have a one loss Oklahoma Big 12 champ and a one loss Pac 12 champ with one loss Bama fighting for one playoff spot. LSU, Clemson, and Ohio State would occupy the other 3 spots.
Do we really care what this imposter thinks? He doesn’t know anymore then the janitor at my school!
Yeah, for Georgia it’s pretty simple. We have difficult games in Auburn (that Bama will have to beat as well) and Texas A&M (Bama’s sole decent team victory) and then LSU. We win all 3, then it’s a big “duh” as to whether we get in. If we lose then we have 2 losses and that’s that. It’d be more of a question if we were undefeated at this point and maybe a close loss at Auburn and a close loss at LSU, but it’s pretty much all or nothing for Georgia at this point.
Unless UGA goes undefeated and beats LSU I don’t see them making it in. Right now I have Ohio state, Clemson, LSU and then either Oregon is they finish with only one loss or one of Oklahoma/ Baylor if they only have one loss with a conf championship. Not saying UGA isn’t good but I think that USC loss could come back to hurt them because of how god awful usc is
Has anybody figured out yet how SC almost beat Georgia and Florida in back-to-back games? I mean, we can all agree SC is awful, and Georgia and Florida are both legitimate top 10 teams. I just can’t remember the last time a team as bad as SC almost beat two teams as good as Georgia and Florida.
Coaching. Muschamp has always been an up and down coach plus the rain played a big factor in the UF game
Auburn, 2017
Turnovers loss the game for UGA against USC. UGA pretty much dominated the whole game. UGA’s defense held South Carolina O to 13 point’s
It’s gonna be close for UGA, but I think they have a legitimate chance.
Let’s assume LSU is in, already a lock unless the College Football World gets turned on it’s head and the Tigers drop not one but two of it’s final games leading up to the SEC Championship, as unlikely as Georgia, the statistically best defense in the league losing to a team like South Carolina. As unlikely as it may sound Georgia showed us that there is no such thing as a “guaranteed win” in college football.
But to make things interesting let’s see who gets the CFP invite if this season wraps up with 4 teams from the best conference with each having 2 losses. We would need Auburn to win the iron bowl (not as impossible as it sounds) then Georgia going down in the SEC Championship leaving Alabama at 2 losses (LSU, Auburn), Auburn (LSU, Florida), Florida (LSU, Georgia), and Georgia (South Carolina, LSU in SEC title) then who gets in along with LSU?
That would be an interesting decision.
Alabama would have little if any chance with losses in both games vs quality opponents, Georgia won’t get in mainly because no one will forget or forgive them for laying an egg at home against South Carolina, how about Auburn with quality wins vs Alabama, Oregon, played LSU to a 3pt loss… or Florida? I might be speaking through my rear end by not looking at the remaining games but you almost would have to give it to the Gators! (I’m not a Gator fan but…) only losing to LSU on the road and rival Georgia, both winners of the East/West and a head to head victory vs Auburn who beats Alabama and we know Georgia has such a bad loss it can’t be excused then you’ll have to put Florida in the playoffs by virtue of common sense. Not many are predicting Florida to get in but regardless of any of the 4 teams mentioned possibly having a future head to head other than the Iron Bowl that I may have missed on the remaining schedule, it’s not too far of a stretch to think this is a very possible outcome. Having only 2 losses to top 10 teams with a combined record of 25-2 *including the SEC Championship I’d challenge the committee to find a more worthy selection once we assume Clemson, Ohio State, LSU are all getting in. I can’t imagine any 1 loss non-SEC team having the resume and only losing to two of the SEC’s best. Or am I missing something? It would only take an Auburn win vs Alabama and LSU to beat Georgia to see this happen *again, pure speculation and I didn’t even look at the 4 teams mentioned remaining schedule. It would be interesting to see what the committee does with a 2 loss team like Florida and if they’d give them the 4th spot over a 1 loss Penn State or another team from one of the cupcake conferences. Can’t see Oregon getting in with 1 loss bc it’s loss was to Auburn, one of the above 2 loss teams who lost to Florida. Hmmm
Oh. If I knew how to edit or delete my original comment I would. Just saw that this weekend will have Auburn vs Georgia officially debunking my “4 SEC teams with 2 losses possibility” oh well, I tried (said Alabama last wknd…)
I hope you enjoyed writing that novel.
I enjoyed reading it and would love for that to happen but it’s not likely, Oregon would have to lose.