Hell froze over last Sunday.
When the first 12-team field for the College Football Playoff was announced, Kalen DeBoer’s Alabama Crimson Tide—essentially Nick Saban’s prized recruits—did not receive an invitation to the party.
Inevitably, this slight will make the hot seat DeBoer already occupies as successor to the seven-time national champion and winner of 292 games (against only 71 losses and one tie) even hotter.
At the same time, it is stoking the fires beneath the CFP Selection Committee’s collective bench.
To appreciate the significance of the 13-member committee’s decision, consider that, in the 10-year history of the four-team national playoff under Saban:
Alabama appeared in it eight years.
Alabama won the national championship three times.
Alabama won the most playoff games: nine.
Let the debate begin.
The 12-team field includes (in seeding order): Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, Arizona State, Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Tennessee, Indiana, SMU and Clemson.
Alabama, at No. 13, was the first team out, and ‘Bama athletic director Greg Byrne predictably expressed “disappointment” at the omission.
“Strength of schedule matters,” Byrne posted on social media the night before the CFP field was announced. “Not all schedules and conferences are created equal. Six of our eight wins are against bowl-eligible teams.”
The Crimson Tide handed second-seeded SEC champion Georgia one of its two losses, 41-34, on September 28 when both teams were unbeaten. But they later lost 24-17 to Tennessee, which made the bracket with a 10-2 record.
Alabama played only one nonconference opponent from a Power Four conference—that is, Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC—beating Wisconsin 42-10. Its other three nonconference foes were Western Kentucky (63-0), South Florida (42-16) and an FCS school (the old Division I-AA) Mercer (52-7).
Walloping those outmanned opponents wasn’t enough to overcome upset losses to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma—both 6-6 this season. (Vanderbilt hadn’t beaten Alabama in 40 years.)
SMU, whose only regular-season defeat was by three points against Colorado’s Alamo Bowl opponent, BYU, lost the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game to Clemson, also by three points, on a last-second 56-yard field goal. The Mustangs are seeded 11th—one spot ahead of the team that beat them in the ACC title game and two ahead of ‘Bama.
But a strength-of-schedule comparison shows Alabama’s slate ranked ninth and SMU’s 15th. And Clemson lost its season opener 34-3 to the same Georgia team that Alabama beat four weeks later.
Alabama, of course, isn’t the only university unhappy with being passed over. Miami and BYU, both 10-2, and Ole Miss and South Carolina, with records that match ‘Bama, all are criticizing their exclusions. (Ole Miss handed Georgia its other loss and beat South Carolina, but those triumphs are offset by a loss to lowly Kentucky and a late-season slip to 7-5 Florida.)
But we’d have complaints no matter how large the field was (and it probably will grow in a couple years).
The most interesting objection comes from Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, whose 11-2 Longhorns lost the SEC championship game to Georgia 22-19 in overtime after falling to the Bulldogs 30-15 during the regular season.
“I just look to the NCAA basketball tournament,” he said. “If you win your conference tournament, you get an automatic bid into the tournament.
“But then there’s seeding. There’s one-seeds; there’s two-seeds—so on and so forth—and nowhere in there does it say if you win your conference championship, you get an automatic one-seed.”
The first real football national championship tournament begins a week from Friday, December 20, when Indiana plays at Notre Dame. This Indiana team posted the best record in school history, 11-1, its only loss to Ohio State. Notre Dame also is 11-1, having lost to Northern Illinois early in the season.
The next day, SMU is at Penn State, Clemson’s at Texas and Tennessee ventures into Ohio Stadium to play Ohio State.
The quarterfinal round begins on December 31 with Boise State taking on the Penn State-SMU winner in the Fiesta Bowl, and continues with games in the Peach, Sugar and Rose Bowls January 1.
In a rematch of a national semifinal played in the Rose Bowl last New Year’s Day, Alabama also will play December 31 against defending national champion Michigan.
But this time it’s in something called the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa.
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Denny Dressman is a veteran of 43 years in the newspaper business, including 25 at the Rocky Mountain News, where he began as executive sports editor. He is the author of 16 books, nine of them sports-related. You can write to Denny at dennydressman@comcast.net.