College Football Playoff won’t be canceled despite Alabama missing for first time

For the first time since its creation, the Alabama Crimson Tide will not make the College Football Playoff by losing to the Auburn Tigers in the Iron Bowl.

The College Football Playoff will not include Alabama, so it’s time to celebrate if you’ve experienced Alabama fatigue.

Back in 2014, major college football has embraced a new format. For the last six years, we have had the College Football Playoff to look forward to. And every year, the Alabama Crimson Tide has made the top-four every single year…until now. By falling to the rival Auburn Tigers in the Iron Bowl, no, the Crimson Tide won’t be playing in the 2020 College Football Playoff.

Alabama drops to 10-2 (6-2) on the season, while Auburn improves to 9-3 (5-3) on the year. By suffering its second loss of the year, having lost to the LSU Tigers at home a few weeks ago, a two-loss, non-champion Alabama team won’t have the resume necessary to convince the College Football Playoff Selection Committee that they deserve a spot in. After experiencing Alabama fatigue in recent years with Nick Saban’s team winning or playing for the national title every year, fans can rejoice to know they won’t this year.

A major criticism of the College Football Playoff the last five years is that the postseason tournament has been a tad to southern for national drawing power. It doesn’t help that Alabama has made it five times and the Clemson Tigers four times. Though the SEC will get at least one team into the Playoff, it will not be Alabama this year.

LSU has have punched its ticket to the Playoff by navigating its regular season to perfection (we’re chalking up their 21-0 lead vs. Texas A&M as a win). A 12-0 (8-0) Tigers team can still fall to the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship next weekend and will almost certainly get in. The same thing can be said with the 12-0 (9-0) Ohio State Buckeyes in the Big Ten.

Throughout the season, LSU and Ohio State have been the two most dominant teams, having beaten a handful of ranked opponents en route to 12-0. The Clemson Tigers are also 12-0 but haven’t played a ranked opponent thus far. So Clemson will have to beat a presumably ranked Virginia Cavaliers team to reach the College Football Playoff as an undefeated ACC Champion.

Overall, teams like LSU, Ohio State and Clemson are near locks to get into the Playoff. As for the fourth spot, Georgia, Oklahoma, the Baylor Bears and the Utah Utes have a shot to get in. Georgia would have to beat LSU in the SEC Championship.

Utah would need LSU to beat Georgia and win the Pac-12 to get in. The winner of the Big 12 Championship between Baylor and Oklahoma would likely need both Georgia and Utah to lose to get in.

After that, Alabama wouldn’t even be the next team in. A two-loss Big Ten Champion Wisconsin Badgers team would get in over Alabama. We could say argue for teams like the Minnesota Golden Gophers or the Penn State Nittany Lions to get in over Alabama, as two-loss, non-champions with better regular-season wins over Alabama. So, not Alabama is not getting in.

All good things must come to an end. It was a beautiful, five-year ride into the College Football Playoff for the Crimson Tide. They got to play in the last four national championships when most Power 5 schools would just love a shot at getting to a national semifinal and play on a massively elevated stage. The Crimson Tide is still a good program, but 2019 was just not their year.

And no, the playoff won’t be canceled because Alabama missed it and no there won’t be an emergency injunction to expand the playoff field to however many teams that gets Alabama in.

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