The hay’s in the barn and it’s up to the College Football Playoff selection committee now.
Nick Saban took a few minutes Saturday evening to at least explain Alabama’s case for being one of the four teams to make it. Appearing live ESPN’s live broadcast on Twitter cohosted by AJ McCarron, Saban’s argument centered on how teams are playing currently and who’d be favored if they met head to head.
Saban noted the hot start for Alabama but connected the Oct. 1 injury to Bryce Young’s throwing shoulder to the slump resulting in the two losses.
“You kinda have to look at how teams are playing at present,” Saban said. “We finished 3-0. We played some pretty good teams. We played Ole Miss on the road when they were No. 9 in the country. But Bryce missed the A&M game, we overcame that and won that game and came back and couldn’t really practice for the next month.”
That inability to practice full strength “affected how we developed on offense,” Saban said.
“So we lost two games on the road to one top-5 team, one top-10 team on the last play of the game,” Saban said. “But now that (Young’s) healthier and he’s able to practice, I think we’re a different team. I think you should look at the circumstances around a 2-loss team versus a 1-loss team and how are they playing at the end of the season? How are they playing at present? I think our team played well down the stretch.”
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Alabama (10-2) would be the first two-loss team to make the playoff in its nine-year run. Its main competition for the final spots would be Ohio State (11-1) and (TCU 12-1).
The Buckeyes lost its regular-season finale to No. 2 Michigan, 45-23. That knocked them out of the Big Ten title game and pushed OSU to No. 5 in last week’s CFP rankings.
TCU was No. 3 but lost to Kansas State, 31-28 in overtime in Saturday’s Big 12 title game.
no. 4 USC effectively eliminated itself with a 47-24 loss to Utah in Friday’s Pac-12 championship.
So it’s a matter of Alabama, TCU and Ohio State for the final two spots.
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“We had some vulnerabilities in the middle of the season in a tough part of the year when we had some tough games on the road and got beat on the last play of the game twice,” Saban said. “Hopefully we can do better. We learned from that.”
Those losses came at Tennessee, 52-49 on a last-second kick, and at LSU, 32-31 in overtime.
“One thing that I would add to this whole playoff conversation as to who gets in, who doesn’t get in, I guess I would ask the question: If we played these teams in question, would we be underdogs or not?” Saban said. “And that should answer everybody’s questions relative to who the best teams are at present. That’s how this should sort of play out.
“So, it would be interesting.”
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or ten Facebook.