The 2022 Alabama football season is not over. But on Selection Day for the CFB Playoff field, there is a sense of emptiness.
Instead of competing in the CFB Playoffs, the Alabama Crimson Tide will play Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl.
The CFB Playoff Selection Committee took the path of least resistance and chose to not make history by putting a two-loss team in the final four. Had they done so, most of the college football world would have exploded.
The four-team format, which will end after next season, now seems quaint. Anyone bemoaning its failings garners little attention. Instead, there is widespread anticipation the change to a 12-team format will ensure no legitimate national championship contender is excluded.
What it will not do is assure the 12 best teams will play for a championship. Maybe the 10 best will, or the 11 best – and in some seasons, even the 12 best. But, debates will continue that more deserving teams are left out. As was Alabama Football this year. The reason why the 12-best teams will not always qualify is in the expanded format, conference championships are given inflated value. The six highest-ranked conference champions will make the Playoff field every season. It will not be uncommon for one or more of them to be a three-loss team. The new format could even elevate a four-loss team into an undeserved Playoff slot.
Alabama Football was one of the four best teams
Rehashing why the Crimson Tide was one of the four best can be reviewed in this recent post. In summary, it explains that against the four selected Playoff teams, Alabama would be favored in games against two of them.
So much for the original, primary task of the CFB Playoffs – to choose the four best teams.
Disappointment of Alabama football fans is tempered by the knowledge the 2022 Crimson Tide failed to measure up to its own championship standard. The losses were close ones on the often tough SEC road, but at least one of them, if not both, should have never happened. They did happen because of Crimson Tide weaknesses, which are both obvious and not new.
It is time for the Alabama football team and its fans to move on. One closing observation is all those trashing Nick Saban for lobbying for his team, could not be more wrong. The man was doing his job – just as he should have been doing.
An early Sugar Bowl thought is Alabama should play Jalen Milroe a lot – because Kansas State does know how to spy a quarterback.
