Alabama's College Football Playoff hopes rest on the road chaos of the SEC

He tried to tell us. Tried it after Georgia got away from Kentucky with a point win, and again after the Bulldogs beat Florida and its third quarterback in the final minutes in Jacksonville.

Winning on the road in the SEC is a losing cause, and if you don’t believe what Georgia coach Kirby Smart has been preaching all season, here’s a better way to explain it:

Alabama is not out of the College Football Playoff race.

Why? Because Tennessee has to win on Saturday at Vanderbilt to not only get into the playoffs, but also to officially banish college football’s Death Star.

“I just think a home game in the SEC is generally hell for the away team,” Smart said. “I told our offensive line that it’s harder in the SEC to play away at the offensive line and some of those positions, which are timing positions and snap count positions, than it is in the NFL to to the playoffs.”

Maybe now it’s starting to get it. Or maybe not, until Vanderbilt beats No. 8 Tennessee and the Vols move in after a season of tough road losses among the conference’s elite.

And yes, it puts No. 13 Alabama in position to return to the College Football Playoff for the ninth time in the tournament’s 11-year history.

“We didn’t play at the level we’re capable of,” Tide coach Kalen DeBoer said of the ugly 24-3 loss at Oklahoma – which was coming off a conference win in its first season in the SEC before last weekend had.

This decline in the level of play for Alabama coincides with two other losses this season, as the Tide went on the road and lost to Vanderbilt and Tennessee. But Alabama is not alone in its traffic woes.

No. 7 Georgia has lost twice on the road (Alabama and Ole Miss) and Tennessee lost at Arkansas and Georgia. No. 20 Texas A&M lost at Auburn and No. 15 South Carolina, which lost at Alabama.

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All three of No. 21 Missouri’s losses have been on the road (Texas A&M, Alabama, South Carolina), and LSU exited the CFP race with road losses to Texas A&M and Florida last month.

No. 14 Ole Miss, with a CFP spot on the line and two weeks to prepare, lost at Florida as a double-digit favorite.

The only team that hasn’t lost on the road is No. 3 Texas, which needed a crucial fourth-down conversion (among other big plays) to emerge from Nashville with a three-point win over Vandy. Texas plays at Texas A&M on Saturday and a spot in the SEC Championship Game is on the line.

Lose on the road to the Aggies, and there’s no telling what happens to the Longhorns’ CFP hopes — which have been supported since the first poll earlier this month and are based on projections. Because it certainly wasn’t based on wins against the committee’s top 25, of which Texas doesn’t have any.

Texas has as many signature wins as it has difficult conference road games this season. Don’t automatically assume the CFP will give Texas a pass if it loses at Texas A&M.

Similar to the schedule the SEC gave Texas in its first conference season, but that’s another story for another time.

This is about Alabama and the reality that no matter how bad the Tide looks on the road, it’s still a Vanderbilt win over Tennessee by returning the CFP.

How bad was it? Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe has completed 57 percent of his passes in these three road losses and has 2 TDs and 6 INTs.

He completed 70 percent of his passes and scored 13 TDs and 3 INTs every other game.

Alabama wide receiver Ryan Williams, the SEC’s most dynamic player, had 13 catches (14.8 yards per catch) in the three losses. He has 29 catches in the nine wins, averaging 21.1 yards per catch.

There’s nothing random about that. The Alabama defense gave up 29.3 points per game in the three losses and an average of 13.1 in every other game.

Alabama’s College Football Playoff hopes rest on the road chaos of the SEC

ByAmelia Journalton

By Amelia Journalton

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