Alabama football picked up a 21-6 win against the Vanderbilt Commodores on Saturday, and ESPN reported the win moved the Tide’s chances to make the College Football Playoff to 97 percent.
The Crimson Tide is currently ranked No. 3 ahead of the third release of the playoff rankings this season. A win against Chattanooga Saturday could essentially lock in the Tide’s playoff spot.
However, what the Tide may not be close to locking in at the moment is a high seed in the playoffs, and their No. 3 ranking could be in jeopardy after this week of college football action.
Alabama’s best wins of the season are against Kentucky, LSU and South Carolina. All three of those teams lost on Saturday. Kentucky and LSU will likely still be ranked by the playoff committee on Tuesday. There is no guarantee South Carolina will be. The Gamecocks dropped to 6-4 after losing to an unranked Arkansas team 34-6 on Saturday.
Alabama also did not do itself a huge favor by beating an unranked Vanderbilt in unconvincing fashion as the No. 3 team in the country.
A couple of SEC teams also now have an argument to jump the Tide this week. Texas is one of those teams after the Longhorns pulled off a late win against LSU on Saturday night. The win gave the Longhorns five wins over ranked opponents this season. Texas will have a shot at jumping the Tide this week.
If the Longhorns do jump Alabama, the Tide could then move into the same pool as Tennessee, and that would make both teams comparable. The Vols’ head-to-head win over Alabama would pretty much force the committee to put Tennessee ahead of the Tide.
“Alabama was in that first pool,” Yurachek said while explaining why Tennessee was behind Alabama last week in the rankings. “Tennessee was not in that first pool. Tennessee’s got a couple of quality wins in the win they had (over) Kentucky, and, obviously, the win they have against Alabama. They’ve got three wins against teams that their schedule strength is 110 and above. And so when you look at their schedule compared to Alabama’s schedule, the committee feels like, and so does the metrics that Alabama’s got a stronger schedule, and that’s why Alabama was in that first pool of teams and Tennessee was not.”
The next rankings will be revealed on Tuesday at 8 p.m. CT.
