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On Sunday afternoon, the final College Football playoff rankings were released, and many were wondering whether or not the Alabama football program had done enough to edge out SMU, who lost narrowly to Clemson in the ACC Championship game on Saturday. Fans got their answer with the reveal of the committee's selection on Sunday, as Alabama was left as one of the first two teams out, and SMU got the final playoff spot, setting up a matchup between themselves and Penn State in the first round.
One person who wasn't thrilled with how things played out was former Alabama football head coach Nick Saban, who now works for ESPN and was an analyst on the program when the rankings were revealed.
“If we don't take strength of schedule into consideration, is there any benefit to scheduling really good teams in the future. Here at Alabama, we're supposed to play Notre Dame, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Florida State in the future outside the league,” said Saban, per Mike Rodak of Bama247. “Those are great games for fans to see, and that's what I think we should be doing in college football is creating more good inventory for great games that people are interested in, but do you enhance people wanting to do that — what's the athletic director going to do? He may go cancel all those games now, knowing the SEC is tough enough.”
It's unclear at this juncture exactly what Saban is referring to here, as Alabama's out of conference schedule this year was nothing to write home about, and the team's three losses all came to SEC foes.
Did Alabama football get snubbed?
Probably not.
Alabama football had three very ugly losses this year, including a recent demolition at the hands of the Oklahoma Sooners, which ultimately weren't enough to offset some of their impressive wins, including victories over Georgia and LSU.
Meanwhile, SMU's strength of schedule did not compare to Alabama's, but the team only lost once this regular season, and the committee would have set a dangerous precedent by punishing them for playing an extra game.
Adding to the committee's decision was likely the intense backlash they received last year when they let Alabama into the playoff over undefeated Florida State, which led to a Crimson Tide loss to Michigan in the playoff.
In any case, the college football playoff is set to begin in just under two weeks.
