Alabama’s already-flimsy CFP argument got blown to smithereens by Navy

The Alabama Crimson Tide and their fans have spent the past couple of weeks hopping mad, telling anyone who would listen (and plenty of people who wouldn't) just how wrong it was that Kalen DeBoer's team was denied a spot in the College Football Playoff. Sure, the Tide lost three times, including twice against 6-6 teams in Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, but the grind of an SEC schedule made them far more worthy than an impostor like Indiana or SMU.

And, admittedly, it looked like they may have had a point as the first round of the first 12-team CFP got underway last weekend. The Hoosiers got manhandled by Notre Dame in South Bend, while SMU was flatly unprepared to deal with a raucous Penn State crowd and defense in a 38-10 blowout.

Since then, though, Alabama's argument has more or less fallen apart. First, Tennessee — a team that not only finished ahead of the Tide in the SEC standings but beat them head-to-head — got blasted by Ohio State in Columbus. And then one of Bama's other losses, Oklahoma, spent their bowl game looking ... well, exactly like you'd expect a 6-6 team to look.

Oklahoma loss to Navy throws even more dirt on Alabama's College Football Playoff case

Brent Venables' Sooners fell 21-20 to Navy in the Armed Forces Bowl on Friday afternoon, giving up 155 yards and two TDs to QB Blake Horvath and failing on a potential game-winning two-point conversion in the game's final seconds. So, since Alabama loves playing the transitive property game, let's recap: Kalen DeBoer's team lost by three scores to an Oklahoma squad that lost to a team previously seen getting walloped by Notre Dame on a neutral field.

Granted, opt outs certainly affected the outcome, as Oklahoma's already-decimated receiver room has taken even more hits since the transfer portal opened. Still, it's not like the Sooners passing game was setting the world on fire last month either, and Jackson Arnold needed just nine completions for 68 yards to lead a 21-point pasting. The fact that a similar Oklahoma team looked more or less even with Navy is a damning indictment of just how flawed Alabama was this season, and how silly it is to be outraged on their behalf over not earning a shot to play for a national title.

No one is arguing that, when Jalen Milroe and Co. are humming, the Tide can beat anyone. But they could also lose to anyone, as they showed three separate times this season, getting bogged down by an schizophrenic offense and an all-too-leaky defense that struggled to get stops when it needed them. A team with such obvious weaknesses doesn't have any right to demand anything, which we were reminded of on Friday.