TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama football sits at 10-2 this season, went 7-1 in the SEC, clinched a spot in this weekend’s conference title game and has one more chance to impress the College Football Playoff selection committee before this season’s 12-team bracket is unveiled on Sunday.
The Crimson Tide rematches No. 3 Georgia (11-1, 7-1 SEC) in Atlanta on Saturday at 3 p.m. CT (ABC). Alabama beat the Bulldogs 24-21 in Athens on Sept. 27. Ahead of the second tilt between the two programs this year, Kalen DeBoer’s squad got a boost from No. 10 to No. 9 in the College Football Playoff rankings. Veteran Crimson Tide players are confident that their unit is among the better ones that could be considered for a spot.
“I think we the best team in the country, regardless of what, what conference or anybody has to say,” Bandit LT Overton said Tuesday, hours before the latest rankings were released. “It’s us against the world, regardless.”
Selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek, the Arkansas athletic director, did not reveal whether or not the Crimson Tide would remain in the field with a loss to Georgia this weekend. The fates of No. 10 Notre Dame, No. 11 BYU (which plays for the Big 12 title on Saturday) and No. 12 Miami (Fla). could affect Alabama if the Bulldogs are able to avenge their earlier defeat.
“The easiest thing to see from them would be a win, obviously. We will judge all of the conference championship games when they’re completed,” Yurachek said Tuesday night. “Each of the championship games will just give us another game and another data point to evaluate the teams that participated in those championship games, and the idle teams around them.”
One of the places Overton’s thought process likely comes from is that the Crimson Tide has played a difficult schedule, at one point beating four ranked teams in a row (two of those contests were away games). Overton is a senior who came back partly to help Alabama get back into title contention after it just missed out on being included as one of last season’s College Football Playoff teams. He had six tackles, four solo (and half of a sack), in the win over Georgia during the regular season.
In Overton’s mind, there is no doubt that the Crimson Tide should be in. Yurachek did not espouse that same sentiment on Tuesday. The bottom line is that Alabama can remove any and all doubt about its postseason status by beating Georgia again. If Overton is correct, and Alabama is the best team in the nation, that helps when the task at hand is to beat one of the top-ranked schools.
“It’s impossible for… the committee to predict what could happen with a win or a loss. They’ve got another great opportunity, another metric that other teams do not have,” Yurachek said.
