Alabama has laughable College Football Playoff case compared to SMU | Sporting News

Over the last 24 hours, arguments have sprouted advocating that Alabama should have made the 12-team College Football Playoff field over a team like SMU. I’m here to tell you why I completely disagree.

The main two reasons that I’ve seen: Alabama faces tougher competition and has more impressive wins.

Honestly, the second argument is not debatable to me. SMU beat No. 22 Louisville by a touchdown and No. 18 Pitt by 20, good wins, but not great wins. Alabama, on the other hand, picked up wins against No. 2 Georgia (41-34), No. 21 Mizzou (34-0), and No. 15 LSU (42-13).

I also agree with the first point. The SEC is a better conference talent-wise than the ACC. There are more relevant winners, higher stakes, and of course, “It Just Means More.”

However, those two arguments are not nearly enough to overcome glaring deficiencies in Alabama’s CFP case — that being how bad two of Alabama’s three losses were.

Alabama’s lone respectable loss came in a 24-17 battle vs. No. 11 Tennessee in Knoxville. I won’t criticize the Tide for that one too much even though they did allow 10 straight points for the Vols to end the game and choke away the lead.

But Alabama’s other two losses are so bad that they outweigh any good in their case to make the playoff.

Alabama’s first loss came in a 40-35 battle against Vanderbilt, a team that finished the regular season 6-6 and scored 40 only twice this season. The only other time was in a 55-0 win over Alcorn State.

Alabama’s most recent loss came against Oklahoma, a team that was ranked for a period this season but finished the season with a 6-6 record. In that game, Alabama was outgained 325-234 in total yards while also losing the turnover battle 3-1 and allowing the Sooners to possess the ball for 34 minutes. The score of that game was 24-3. Alabama had not been held to three or fewer points since 2004 until the loss to Oklahoma.

A program like SMU should not get punished because it is in a weaker conference, especially not when a team like Alabama has the funds and talent available to overcome being in a tougher conference.

Alabama lost three games, two of which came against schools that finished with a 6-6 record. That is simply not good enough to justify being in the College Football Playoff over a two-loss SMU, which lost to No. 17 BYU and No. 13 Clemson.

SMU lost to two top-20 opponents. The Mustangs lost by six points combined in those two games.

Of note, one of those losses came in the ACC Championship Game. Alabama did not make its conference championship game.

What are we even talking about here?