Kalen DeBoer proves how flawed the CFP committee’s criteria is with telling comments about Alabama’s latest ranking
Coach DeBoer isn’t buying what the committee is selling.
When the Alabama Crimson Tide went to bed on Tuesday night, the team saw itself drop six places in the weekly College Football Playoff rankings. The loss to the Oklahoma Sooners was expected to create a ripple effect among the top 10, but to see Alabama drop from four to 10 caught more than a few people off guard.
That was widely due to the team directly in front of the Tide. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish ranked ninth in the rankings despite have the same amount of losses and fewer top 25 wins than Alabama.
So it proved that for whatever reason, the committee keeps valuing losses more than they do wins, and even Kalen DeBoer had to acknowledge that during his weekly SEC call on Wednesday.
Kalen DeBoer knows the CFP committee values losses more than wins
“I mean, I didn’t even see the show. I saw the rankings pop up on the ESPN app on my phone, took a quick look at it, and went back to work and didn’t read into anything,” said DeBoer on Wednesday. “I just know that we have a ton of quality wins. I know that they really look strongly at the losses. But you know, last week was against a very good football team, and I think we’ve played a lot of really good football. We’ve shown consistency and improvement throughout the year, and a lot of improvement, and we got to do our job here the rest of the way and make sure we keep taking care of business.”
Look, at the end of the day, if Alabama misses the CFP, it will be its own fault. The team will have lost multiple games in which they were favored, and who knows what happens with the SEC championship. The problem is what DeBoer said about losses. “I know that they really look strongly at the losses.”
In what world should Notre Dame be above Alabama because the Fighting Irish’s two losses against the University of Miami and the Texas A&M Aggies are better than Alabama’s losses against the Florida State Seminoles and Oklahoma Sooners?
Especially when you see that Alabama has four top 25 wins, while Notre Dame’s best resume boosters are wins over Pittsburgh and USC. It doesn’t make any sense, and my colleague at A to Z Sports, Josh Taylor, can’t figure out the committee’s approach either.
“Coach DeBoer is right about getting back to work, and just doing everything you can to improve. Alabama still controls its own destiny with two more games left, and the team have to focus on what they can control, and not let outside noise be a distraction that leads to a back-breaking loss in the Iron Bowl against Auburn. Alabama still has a chance to make it to the SEC Championship, but it has to beat Auburn and let the rest play out.
They have a chance over the next two weeks to work on their run game and dominate with decisive wins over Eastern Illinois and Auburn, and let their resume speak for itself, while the chaos continues around the country. Texas beating Texas A&M, or Mississippi State beating Ole Miss would be best-case scenario, as well as Oregon losing to USC, and Notre Dame dropping one more game. But that’s out of Alabama’s control, and it needs to block out everything except the next game.” – Taylor
So it doesn’t make a ton of sense but Alabama can’t afford to pay attention to those around them. It’s tunnel vision from here through the Iron Bowl, and how the Tide responds will be what matters in the end.
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