The 12-team Playoff was intended to improve college football, but in its first year, it’s having the opposite effect. Alabama Football, along with other SEC programs, will have to adjust to this new reality.
On Sunday, a wave of frustration swept through college football, with a dozen teams celebrating their playoff spots—but Alabama, Ole Miss, and South Carolina were not among them. These three 3-loss SEC teams had legitimate reasons to be upset. While their complaints don’t necessarily mean they were treated unfairly by the Playoff Selection Committee, their losses did play a role in their exclusion. However, some argue that less-deserving teams made the field. For instance, Alabama was ranked higher than several teams that made the Playoff, and Ole Miss and South Carolina could also make similar claims.
The problem with the current system lies in the automatic bids given to conference champions. When the rules for the 12-team Playoff were being decided, Greg Sankey initially opposed these automatic bids but ultimately accepted the majority’s decision. Moving forward, it’s likely that Sankey won’t be as accommodating. The current system is deeply flawed, and a new one should be created for a 12-16 team field.
One issue with the Playoff’s selection process is the weekly rankings, which often inflated the positions of certain teams, such as Notre Dame and SMU, before the championship weekend. As Nick Saban pointed out, the real issue with SMU’s ranking was not how it was handled after championship weekend, but the fact that they had been ranked too high for weeks leading up to it.
Some experts argue that, if SMU were in the SEC, it would likely rank as the fifth or sixth-best team in the league, at best. SMU’s loss to a mediocre Playoff team only added to the controversy.
As Clint Lamb noted, there was hope that the 12-team format would create more room for error and lead to better regular-season matchups. However, the committee’s disregard for wins against ranked teams has led to the opposite outcome. Greg Byrne, Alabama’s athletic director, was right to criticize the Playoff committee on Sunday, calling attention to the flaws in their decisions. He emphasized that the way strength of schedule is evaluated needs to be reconsidered, as it’s clear that certain out-of-conference games may not make sense in future scheduling to help Alabama remain competitive in the Playoff race.
Alabama Football will have to adjust. While Byrne is not a sore loser, the team will likely change its future schedules, cutting back on out-of-conference games against tough Power Four opponents. The brutal nature of SEC competition, combined with the importance of minimizing losses, means that Alabama will need to drop games that pose a serious risk of defeat. This shift could have a negative impact on college football, as it would result in fewer exciting matchups for fans, lower-quality games for media, and a lack of developmental opportunities for teams. In exchange, the Playoff may feature teams that appear to be championship contenders despite being less deserving.
