College Football Playoff rankings: Everything 3-loss Alabama needed has happened

Just a week ago, everyone rightly looked at the Alabama Crimson Tide getting smoked, 24-3, on the road against middling Oklahoma and believed that Kalen DeBoer's team was cooked. The chances of making the SEC Championship Game went up in smoke and, likely, so too did the chances of the Tide making the College Football Playoff.

What a difference sever days could make.

While there was plenty of discussion about if a three-loss Alabama team deserved to still be in the 12-team CFP bracket, cooler heads told you that the Crimson Tide would need a ton of help in the final week of the regular season to find their way into the Playoff field.

But lo and behold, while Alabama notched an emphatic victory over the Iron Bowl, they also seemingly got the help that they needed. Now, the possibility that a three-loss team is alive in the bracket for a shot at national championship is not just mathematically possible but perhaps probable.

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3-loss Alabama very much alive for College Football Playoff berth

While Ryan Day and Ohio State's continued ineptitude when playing Michigan doesn't do much to help Alabama's cause, a slew of other results broke perfectly their way. Obviously, Bama winning the Iron Bowl is part of that equation but they should also send some Christmas cards to Fran Brown at Syracuse and Shane Beamer at South Carolina.

At the same time the Buckeyes were getting upset by their rivals, the same was true of the Clemson Tigers at home against rival South Carolina. The Gamecocks furiously came back in the waning minutes to take a late lead and then stonewall Dabo Swinney's team to pick up the 17-14 win. That removes Clemson's chances of being an at-large berth the College Football Playoff and, as a team ranked ahead of Alabama previously, pushes the Tide up another spot.

Beyond that, the mid-afternoon window saw Mario Cristobal's Miami Hurricanes go on the road to Syracuse and get clipped in a shootout. The U settled for a field goal down 42-35 to make it a four-point game. That proved fatefully wrong as Miami's defense was unable to get the Orange off the field, milking the clock and picking up another upset on Saturday.

That's even bigger for Alabama. Had Miami won and punched its ticket to the ACC Championship Game, there could've been a justifiable world in keeping an ACC champion SMU team and a two-loss Miami team in the CFP field over the Crimson Tide. Instead, Miami is out of the Playoff picture entirely with the loss, opening another path for Bama, especially since an SMU loss to Clemson likely still means only one ACC team gets in.

The only complicating factor right now for Alabama is South Carolina after notching the Clemson win. With that victory, though the Gamecocks have a head-to-head loss to the Tide, South Carolina could conceivably jump ahead of DeBoer's team with a better resumé.

No losses for the Gamecocks (LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama) are as bad as Bama's two worst in Vanderbilt and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, SC also has ranked wins (currently ranked teams) over Missouri, Texas A&M and now Clemson. The Tide's ranked wins are equal with victories over Georgia, Missouri and, as mentioned, South Carolina. But again, the losses look worse.

We'll have to see how the Selection Committee weighs that when the final rankings are tallied and as the dust continues to settle on rivalry week and conference championship week. However, it's all shaping up exactly how any Alabama fan would've hoped.