Despite three losses, Alabama football is a contender for the CFP bracket

If the College Football Playoff committee needs another three-loss team to make the round, cheer up Alabama. I’m looking at you.
Ole Miss failed because Lane Kiffin’s Rebels, for all their talent, lacked killer instinct.
Looking for a national championship contender? Start with Ohio State, Georgia, Oregon or Texas.

Alabama and Mississippi refused to give up the gold medal to Indiana because of Saturday’s biggest loss.

Lose by 23 points at Ohio State? Yes, this is bad, Hoosiers.

Lost by 21 points to Oklahoma, which hadn’t beaten a Bowl Subdivision opponent in nearly two months? Yes, that’s worse, Crimson Tide.

Are you losing to the opponent who once viewed you as his savior? Yes, that’s horrible, Lane Kiffin, but it’s fitting for a season where up is down and parity reigns.

As the College Football Playoff race enters its final round and the SEC ponders how to put lipstick on a pig, here’s what’s on my mind after Week 13:

Will Alabama remain in the hunt for the College Football Playoff?

I can’t believe I’m writing this because the Crimson Tide just got beaten by a bad opponent, but yes, there’s still a hint of playoff pulse in Alabama.

By the way, that’s not proof of Alabama.

Alabama’s inconsistent performances have left the country with little to complain about when it’s not on the field, but the playoffs are 12 spots and the rankings aren’t shrinking just because this season featured a plethora of surprises and fewer superpowers.

Alabama (8-3) faced one of the toughest schedules in the country. Wins against Georgia, South Carolina and LSU bolster the record, while losses against Vanderbilt and Oklahoma negatively impact it.

The Tide are ranked No. 13 in the latest US LBM Coaches Poll. The College Football Playoff rankings will be updated on Tuesday evening.

If the committee needs a three-loss team to round out its field, Alabama will be at the top.

Alabama needs to win the Iron Bowl and likely needs help to reach the CFP. The best way? South Carolina beats Clemson, Syracuse beats Miami and SMU wins the ACC Championship.

That would leave the ACC with just one team, SMU, with fewer than three losses and threatened to turn this conference back into a one-bid league.

There are other ways to save Alabama.

What if Georgia loses to Georgia Tech and then loses again in the SEC Championship game? Georgia out, Alabama in?

Regardless, Alabama fans won’t remember this season as a successful debut for Kalen DeBoer. Needing help from Georgia Tech or Syracuse to get into the playoffs isn’t Alabama’s standard. That doesn’t mean DeBoer’s tenure is doomed, but his debut was a bust.

DISH PROJECTIONS: Tennessee and ACC get big playoff boost

CALM DOWN: The five biggest overreactions from Week 13

What happened to Ole Miss?

Good teams find ways to win their clunkers.

Talented teams that lack mental toughness must say “shoulda, woulda, coulda.”

Ole Miss is considered a talented team that flopped because the Rebels couldn’t handle pressure situations.

The Rebels rallied persistently in crunch time and failed to make enough big plays with the games on the line. Ole Miss managed a fourth-down miracle in an inexplicable loss to Kentucky, then missed a field goal that would have forced overtime.

The Rebels failed to maintain their second-half lead against LSU, failed to make a crucial stop in the fourth quarter and wasted a game that Ole Miss had no business winning.

Against Florida, the Rebels scored zero points on three plays in the red zone.

The lasting image of this Ole Miss season will be Lane Kiffin’s stunned look in the final seconds of the loss at Florida when he realized he had been overtaken by Billy Napier – the coach many Florida fans are in the process of replacing with Kiffin wanted last month.

Kiffin managed to do more with less early in his term. He usually beat the teams he was supposed to beat. The script was flipped this year. With his best Ole Miss squad ever, Kiffin did less with more. With a schedule tailored to playoff qualification, he lost to one mediocre opponent after another — Kentucky, then LSU, then Florida.

After Ole Miss dismantled Georgia, we stumbled upon Kiffin fixing the program’s line of scrimmage weaknesses through transfers.

But even a robust NIL collective cannot acquire a killer instinct.

Ole Miss’ complete lack of calm, coolness and composed killer instinct, from the sideline to the quarterback, caught up with the Rebels in one of the most disappointing seasons of Kiffin’s career.

Will the 12-team CFP bracket remain?

I suspect that more changes are coming. Fan response to this format seems to be overwhelmingly positive and the system is working exactly as designed. This big, beautiful mess gave us one of the most dramatic seasons I can remember.

Because of the structure of the playoffs, Indiana-Ohio State, Ole Miss-Florida and Alabama-Oklahoma were crucial games. Expand the playoffs to 16 or even 14, and those results become less significant.

So do the playoffs need to change? NO.

But SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is wielding a big stick. What do you think Sankey feels about his conference now being able to qualify fewer teams than the Big Ten while the ACC clinch two, maybe even three spots?

I don’t expect this to go down well with the SEC. Enjoy this playoff format this year and next, as I suspect there could be changes in 2026 that move the game further toward the supposed “Super Two” conferences.

Who will win the national championship?

Good question. This is not one of those years where one or two superpowers stand out from the pack. Even unbeaten Oregon shows some vulnerability.

If you allowed me to draft four teams that I think could win the national championship and you took everyone else, I would consider the following in order:

1. Ohio State, 2. Georgia, 3. Oregon, 4. Texas.

And I would have a good chance, although not nearly as good as if I could have LSU in 2019 or Alabama in 2020.

Goodbye, superpowers. You had a good run.

Blake Toppmeyer is the national college football columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all his columns.

Despite three losses, Alabama football is a contender for the CFP bracket

ByAmelia Journalton

By Amelia Journalton

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