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During a weekend full of lopsided College Football Playoff games between traditional powerhouses running through their less accomplished opponents, the cries from Alabama, Ole Miss and the rest of the south were deafening.
All over the internet, the television, the broadcasts, or anything else that you looked at or listened to, you could hear the cries. Why wasn't Alabama in? Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina all would have played better than this, surely. Strength of schedule matters! All of the predictable cries after a couple of underwhelming CFP games.
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin was the leader of the pack. The leader of the Rebels fired off two posts on X, formerly Twitter, implying that the SEC got the short end of the stick. One of the posts game after Notre Dame thrashed Indiana on Friday night, and the other followed SMU's blowout loss against Penn State.
Dick Vitale, a former college basketball coach and a legendary college basketball announcer on ESPN, wasn't having it with any of Kiffin's nonsense on social media. Vitale fired back with his own post on Saturday afternoon.
“Ok the critics of the selection of @IndianaFootball & @SMUFB get over your school not being selected,” Vitale wrote on X. “Wow Lane Kiffin I thought u were better than mocking out Hoosiers for having a tough time. Did ur Ole Miss ever have a bad game ?Look at film of your Kentucky & Florida games.”
CFP results don't mean the committee got it wrong with Alabama, Ole Miss
Vitale has a great point, and the reality of the situation is that Kiffin has nobody to blame but himself and his staff and players. Kentucky finished the season with one SEC win and just one win over a Power Four team. Was it against a bad team? No, to was against Ole Miss. Was it at least a home game? No, it was in Oxford.
If Kiffin and company win that game, Ole Miss is in the CFP comfortably and Kiffin wouldn't have to do all of this whining on the internet.
Alabama is in a similar situation. The Crimson Tide lost a game to 6-6 Vanderbilt and a close road game against Tennessee early in the season, and Kalen DeBoer's group was still ranked comfortably in the top eight in the rankings, right on pace for a spot in the SEC Championship Game and, at worst, a home playoff game.
Then, Alabama was completely uncompetitive and got crushed 24-3 against the worst Oklahoma team since before Bob Stoops was the head coach. Those three losses, two of them to average teams, did it in and eventually led the selection committee to pick Indiana and SMU for the final two at-large spots.
Strength of schedule is a concern and the balance of conference schedules is a major problem in college football moving forward, but it is an issue primarily created by the SEC for trying to create the massive super-conferences. Next season, Kiffin and his Ole Miss football team should start by winning the games he's supposed to win to get to the CFP.