Remember, it was only last season that top-ranked Alabama suffered its first loss against Auburn in the regular-season finale, knocking the Tide out of the SEC championship game. Then, after watching from the sideline as Georgia beat Auburn for the conference title, Saban's team landed a playoff invite anyway.
The Bulldogs did, too, making the SEC the first conference in the playoff era to take up two spots. While there was plenty of grumbling about the SEC getting favorable treatment, it was hard to argue with the committee's logic. Ohio State won the Big Ten title, but the Buckeyes had a pair of losses on their resume. The Pac had no one of consequence.
Central Florida barked loudly about deserving a chance with its perfect record, but no one in their right mind thought the Knights were a better team than the Crimson Tide. Alabama backed up the committee's decision by cruising past Clemson in the semifinals , setting up an all-SEC national championship against Georgia.
That game was one of the ages, the Tide rallying from a pair of point deficits to beat the Bulldogs in overtime on Tagovailoa's yard touchdown pass. If Alabama stumbles again, it might tougher to give the Tide a second chance — especially if Oklahoma and Ohio State both win impressively.
But the committee has shown its willingness to overlook Power Five conference champions in favor of what it views as the stronger team, also picking Ohio State in even though the Buckeyes didn't even quality for the Big Ten title game.
Note: These chances reflect the results from Week 13 but not the latest playoff committee rankings, which are released Tuesday night. This is one of the dream scenarios for the committee, as it would give them three top-tier teams and only two Tier 2 teams to choose from, one of which is non-Power 5 UCF with an injured QB. From there, picking the four playoff teams would be relatively straightforward. According to our model, this result would also benefit the selection committee.
If Clemson were to lose the ACC title game to Pitt when favored by more than three touchdowns , the Tigers would suddenly be a Tier 2 team battling with a couple of fellow candidates the Buckeyes and Sooners who would each boast conference championships in this scenario.
This is a variation of the first scenario listed above, where everything goes more or less to form except Georgia beats Alabama for the SEC title. Despite the scary-sounding prospect of dealing with a one-loss, non-conference-champ Crimson Tide team, this sequence of events gets the committee off the hook to some extent.
Under this very plausible situation — the most likely on this list, in fact — the committee would have to make a tough choice among Ohio State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame for the third and fourth playoff seeds.
So that means it would come down to splitting hairs between the Buckeyes and Sooners. Good luck with that. And if Georgia loses between now and Atlanta, Alabama returns to the No. I will give you this, Alabama would be a reasonable pick if your Dawgs come up short--perhaps on Saturday against those hated Gators. But I will argue that a gathering steam Ohio State could be worthy, especially if the Buckeyes roll over Penn State on Saturday as expected. I could even argue that if Michigan stays unbeaten and crushes unbeaten Michigan State.
Unbeaten is still unbeaten--at least during the regular season--and even teams such as Oklahoma and Cincinnati if they post huge victories should be looked out. So a Georgia loss--which probably won't happen--is no guarantee that the next SEC team gets moved into the top spot.
Chris Dufresne. Tony Barnhart. Herb Gould. Mark Blaudschun. TMG Maven. SI TIX.
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