Alabama's College Football Playoff rankings show the power of the SEC and Big Ten

What, did you really think the College Football Playoff selection committee was here to tell us that this sport has become more egalitarian than we’ve seen in the last 50 years? Did you really think that the first year of a 12-team playoff and the beautiful mess that created that regular season would break the stranglehold that the SEC and Big Ten have over all aspects of college sports?

Ha. Nice try. You have a better chance of buying a lottery ticket than taking over the oligarchy, which always – always – gets the benefit of the doubt when the odds are tight.

And just look at what it will potentially bring us: Alabama at Notre Dame? Tennessee at Ohio State?

Oh yes!

And also: Oh no!

Warde Manuel, the chairman of the committee, made it clear Tuesday night on ESPN that there is only one result left heading into conference championship weekend that will have a significant impact on the standings. If Clemson beats SMU for the ACC title, the Tigers will move into the field as an automatic qualifier. And the mustangs? Well, it’s going to be a nervous Saturday night as the final spot in the field will pretty much fall to the Ponies and the Crimson Tide.

Gulp.

But even so, the new reality of college football is obvious. We can talk all we want about NIL and the scheduling disparity in 16-team conferences and a new form of parity that seemed to be sprouting across the country this year. For heaven’s sake, Georgia needed eight overtimes and an avalanche of friendly referee calls to beat the sixth-ranked ACC team last Friday.

But at the end of the day, the College Football Playoff bracket will have four SEC teams, four from the Big Ten, Notre Dame, the winner of Boise State-UNLV in the Mountain West and the winner of Arizona State-Iowa State in the Big 12 and SMU as the lone ACC representative when they take care of business against Clemson.

WINNERS AND LOSERS: Ohio State and Alabama receive support from the CFP Committee

DISH PROJECTIONS: Alabama enters the playoff field while Texas and SMU advance

In other words, there is no Power Four. There’s only one Power Two, and everyone else has to deal with the leftovers.

The committee’s decision to rank Alabama at No. 11 is telling. Even at 9-3 and losing to Vanderbilt and arguably the worst Oklahoma team of the 21st century, the Crimson Tide is capable of getting into this thing when it doesn’t really feel like they deserve it. Again.

You can return to the BCS in 2011, when Alabama gave Oklahoma State the nod to play LSU for the BCS title despite already losing to the Tigers in the regular season. Look at 2017 when they didn’t win the SEC West but were voted one of the top four teams and won the whole thing. Or you can focus on last year, when the Crimson Tide passed undefeated Florida State with a single loss and secured fourth place, largely due to the injury to Seminole starting quarterback Jordan Travis.

The trend is clear. Alabama always gets the benefit of the doubt, even in a year like this where it’s hard to find many data points that say they deserve it, and even Crimson Tide fans gave up on the season a few weeks ago after the 24- 3 Embarrassment in Norman.

Manuel came forward Tuesday with an answer to the question of why the committee liked Alabama over 10-2 Miami or even other 9-3 teams like Ole Miss and South Carolina. He pointed to Alabama’s 3-1 record against teams currently ranked in the top 25 as the best of that group. He also pointed out that Alabama is 6-1 against teams over .500, while Miami is 4-2.

Those are compelling points if you ignore that Alabama’s two bad losses are worse than Miami’s two losses to Georgia Tech (the team Georgia beat all the way) and a 9-3, 22nd-ranked Syracuse team.

And I’m not saying the committee is wrong here. Someone will get 12th place, and whoever it is will be flawed.

But when you’re the SEC and the Big 12, Tuesday has to be both clarifying and depressing. Yes, Miami has only itself to blame for blowing a 21-0 lead at Syracuse last weekend, and Clemson probably would have secured its spot in the field had it blown a 14-7 lead by last weekend would have held against South Carolina into the fourth quarter. No one will seriously dispute that any of these teams are doing poorly.

But the fact that the ACC has four teams in the rankings and potentially only gets one spot is a huge slap in the face. And the Big 12 was essentially dismissed as a serious college football entity and treated no differently in the rankings than the American Athletic Conference. BYU is a 10-2 team with a loss to SMU, a four-point loss to Kansas and a five-point loss to Arizona State, and doesn’t even land at No. 18 in the rankings.

Meanwhile, Indiana is so protected by the Big Ten franchise that the Hoosiers will enter this field at 11-1, even though they haven’t beaten anyone and were crushed at Ohio State in their only real test of the season.

While college football officials discussed expanding the playoffs beyond 12 when the next television deal takes effect in a few years, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and the Big Ten’s Tony Petitti have a 14-team, four-automatic playoff Applications have been launched for each of their leagues.

When that was rejected, the next point of discussion focused on three guaranteed offers each for those two leagues and two each for the Big 12 and ACC. It’s unfair and unnecessary – in a sense, even un-American. But after seeing how this year’s round pans out, they may need to think hard about taking this deal.

If the ACC and Big 12 are stuck in a situation where they need some luck and grace from the committee just to add a second team, they’re in big trouble. Because Alabama will always be Alabama, and the truth about expanding the playoffs to 12, 14 or 16 teams is that it significantly lowers the bar for what the Bluebloods have to accomplish to make the playoffs.

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Alabama’s College Football Playoff rankings show the power of the SEC and Big Ten

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