Alabama made things difficult on the College Football Playoff selection committee with its lopsided 28-7 loss to Georgia in the SEC championship game Saturday.
With a win, or even a close loss, the Crimson Tide would likely be safely in the 12-team field. With an opening week loss to Florida State and a debate for the final at-large bid between Notre Dame, Miami, Alabama and even BYU, the Tide did themselves no favors with their championship Saturday performance.
As Alabama surprisingly jumped in front of Notre Dame in last week’s CFP rankings, there is the argument that no team should be punished by moving down due to a loss in its conference championship game while other bubble teams don’t play this week. Although the college football world was perplexed with the Tide’s case, head coach Kalen DeBoer and quarterback Ty Simpson remain confident that Alabama will be included in the CFP after the loss to No. 3 Georgia.
“If this game applies to and takes away from our résumé, I don’t think that’s right,” DeBoer said via Sports Illustrated’s Bryan Fischer. “I really don’t. I think the precedent has been set and I don’t know how you can go into a conference playoff game when you’re the No. 1 seed and did all these things throughout the year and playing in this game against one of the top teams in the country, how that can hurt you and keep you out of the playoff when you’ve done what we’ve done all year.”
Simpson shared a similar sentiment, as the junior QB asserted he was not nervous heading into the CFP committee’s decision on Sunday.
“I’m not nervous at all, it’s not up to me. I think that our résumé speaks for itself,” Simpson said to reporters postgame. “We went through a gauntlet of a schedule, the SEC is the best conference in the country and that’s a really tough team. It’s pretty much as simple as that. We went through a tough schedule and we’re the most resilient team in the country and our résumé speaks for itself.”
The CFP committee agreed last week, putting the Tide ahead of the Irish despite both teams winning in its respective regular-season finale. We’ll see if they decide to mix things up with a difficult debate on this year’s cut line.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Kalen DeBoer, Ty Simpson Remain Very Confident in Alabama’s CFP Case Despite Georgia Loss.
