4 biggest College Football Playoff snubs that deserved a seat at the table

The College Football Playoff bracket has been announced! After so much deliberation, prognostication and estimation, the Selection Committee met for the final time on Selection Sunday and delivered us the 12-team CFP field. And in their biggest decision, they chose to give the final at-large berth to the SMU Mustangs over the Alabama Crimson Tide.

That is obviously where we're going to start when we talk about College Football Playoff snubs. It's hard to look at a team with the high-end win Alabama has to its credit and think that they don't deserve to be in the CFP field.

But Alabama isn't alone. These teams all deserved far more consideration than they got to be in the College Football Playoff bracket.

4. Army Black Knights

For the Army Black Knights, it feels as if Jeff Monken's team ultimately fell victim to two things. First and foremost, their status as a longstanding independent that just joined a conference appeared to be top-of-mind for both the Selection Committee and even the AP voters throughout the season. More than that, it seems as if not having Ashton Jeanty hurt their attention.

Having said that, it's absurd that Army wasn't even all that close to challenging Boise State for the Group of 5 spot in the College Football Playoff. Yes, the Black Knights' loss to Notre Dame was obviously worse than the Broncos' to Oregon. But at the end of the day, both teams lost to the only high-end power team that they played this season and then ran through a schedule that ranked outside of the Top 80 in strength of schedule.

In the end, it's probably the right call that Boise was the representative chosen from the G5 to be in the CFP. At the same time, Army undoubtedly deserved way more consideration than it seems they were given to challenge the Broncos for that title.

3. Miami Hurricanes

On the one hand, the Miami Hurricanes played a weak schedule and ultimately lost to two teams that fell outside of the Top 25 of the final CFP rankings, Georgia Tech and Syracuse. That cost them the shot at the ACC's automatic bid and getting into the conference title game. On that merit, it's understandable why the Canes were unable to get in.

However, while we're debating them against the likes of SMU and Indiana as potential at-large teams, the simple fact of the matter is that they aren't far removed. Miami's most impressive wins over the likes of Duke and Florida — albeit before we knew that Gators win would look better as the year went on — matches up with the Mustangs and Hoosiers not having any Top 25 wins. Granted, Indiana only lost one game and it's a better loss than either that The U took.

But when you get down to it, you're talking about a team that was undefeated until late in the year and that, if you asked some of the coaches of teams in the College Football Playoff field, wouldn't want to play. Who would want to line up across from Cam Ward? That should've given Miami a little more credence and consideration for a CFP berth.

2. South Carolina Gamecocks

I'll die on this hill, I swear. While I understand that you have to value head-to-head losses or else the games might simply not matter, which is good for no one. At the same time, though, the South Carolina Gamecocks this season, especially in comparison to teams that they lost to, is the perfect exception to that rule.

South Carolina doesn't have a bad loss on the resumé, falling in close ones to Alabama and LSU in games they arguably should've won and getting blown out by Ole Miss but with LaNorris Sellers playing at far less than 100%. But when you compare Shane Beamer's team to Alabama and Ole Miss on the bubble, what stands out is that they don't have a bad loss. The Crimson Tide and Rebels, meanwhile, have two apiece, losing as heavy favorites against fringe bowl teams.

When you then consider South Carolina's wins over Texas A&M in a blowout, tight over Missouri, and in a thriller against now-ACC Champion and rival Clemson, the resumés look similar. So to me, all of the head-to-head stuff gets lost in the wash of balancing quality wins and quality losses among these teams, and we can throw SMU into that mix too. It's about which team then passes the eye test at this point and, with Sellers' improvement combined with the Gamecocks defense, South Carolina deserved to be in.

1. Alabama Crimson Tide

I'll be completely honest with you, this was the last result I expected from the College Football Playoff. Maybe there is still some hope left in the world. While I understand that Alabama registered a win over Georgia and more quality wins, they took two awful losses, the worst of which was a 24-3 disaster at a Oklahoma team that barely made a bowl game, so I thought SMU may have been more deserving because, even against a less gaudy strength of schedule, they made their conference title game.

At the end of the day, though, if we are talking about getting the balance of the most deserving and best teams in college football into the College Football Playoff, then how can you look at SMU and Alabama and think that the latter isn't the more dangerous team that opponents in the CFP would less like to face?

I'm sure Alabama fans will be screaming about that fact until they turn purple. Honestly, this was a lose-lose situation for the committee, either devaluing conference title bouts if they left SMU out or devaluing strength of schedule by leaving Alabama out. So with the Crimson Tide on the outside of the Playoff field, we have to end our snubs with them because both Kalen DeBoer's team and Rhett Lashlee's team would've been in this spot depending on the selection.