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Paul Finebaum lists 3-loss SEC team most likely to sneak into Playoff
By Mark Kern
Published:
Paul Finebaum and the rest of the college football world are waiting for the newest College Football Playoff rankings to come out on Tuesday, as this will be a good indicator of what the final rankings are going to look like on Dec. 8.
One of the biggest questions is if there is a going to be a 3-loss team from the SEC that sneaks into the Playoff. Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina all have pros for why they should be in, but they also have cons that could prevent them from making it.
Even though Finebaum has been frustrated with the Crimson Tide this year, he said on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning that he thinks they are the team from that group.
“I bounce all over the place with Alabama, South Carolina and Ole Miss,” Finebaum said. “But in the end, I think Alabama clearly has the better resume. We know South Carolina is playing better today. I don’t think Ole Miss is even in the conversation, and you can tell the desperation of Lane Kiffin by what he put out (on Sunday). I think Alabama is going to be on that cut line.”
The Crimson Tide at times this year have looked bad, as 2 of their losses are at Vanderbilt and at Oklahoma. While those 2 losses are question marks, neither of the other 2 teams in this conversation have the wins that Alabama has either.
“I think the wins have to matter. Everyone listening can throw up the losses, that’s pretty self-explanatory,” Finebaum said. “I think everybody has losses, but not that many have great wins, and Alabama now has 2 extremely good wins (Georgia and South Carolina). How much you want to factor in Missouri is open to interpretation. No one can deny the top 2 (wins). There’s no one on the bubble with those types of wins… I think (the committee) will look at Alabama. Will the brand matter? Probably. It should.”
While he thinks Alabama deserves to be in, Finebaum does think the nerves will be high in Tuscaloosa for the next week.
“Whether they’re inside or out, whether they catch a break next week,” Finebaum said. “They caught a couple of breaks this past weekend, a couple more could have gone their way… Ultimately, I think they are going to have to sweat it out all the way down to Sunday at noon.”
There is 1 thing that concerns Finebaum with the committee, and it is the fact that it could just choose to take the easy way out and leave all 3 SEC teams out.
“The one thing that concerns me is that this committee will take a weasely way out and they’ll go ‘Everyone has an argument in the SEC, and the best thing to do is to leave all 3 out’,” Finebaum said. “That’s absolute stupidity, but we’ve all served on committees.”
Tuesday will be telling when it comes to which of these 3 SEC teams appears to be in the best position, but we won’t get a definite answer until Sunday.
