Nick Saban makes a case for the Alabama Crimson Tide in the playoff

Nick Saban believes the Alabama Crimson Tide football team deserves to be in the playoff instead of Ohio State. On Sunday, we will find out if the College Football Playoff committee agrees.

For the first time since 2013, the Alabama Crimson Tide football team did not represent the West division in the SEC Championship game on Saturday. Naturally, Nick Saban does not think that should keep Crimson Tide out of the College Football Playoff.

Since the playoff started in 2014, Alabama has controlled their own destiny for getting a top-four spot in the final rankings each year. For the past three years, the Crimson Tide has won the SEC Championship to secure a spot in the playoff.

However, this year has been different for No. 5 Alabama. The Crimson Tide did not win the SEC West. Alabama had to rely on Ohio State to win the Big Ten Championship to even have a chance at getting into the playoff. But there still is no guarantee that the College Football Playoff committee will put Alabama into the top four.

Saban appeared on College GameDay on Saturday morning and said he would have to wait to see what happened throughout the day regarding Alabama’s playoff chances. But when the coach spoke with Scott Van Pelt over the phone on SportsCenter later that night, he made it very clear that he felt his one-loss team deserved to be in the playoff instead of the Ohio State Buckeyes, the two-loss Big Ten champion.

Even though Alabama did not play for their conference title game, Saban’s team probably is more deserving of a spot in the top four of the College Football Playoff committee’s final rankings. The Crimson Tide has three wins over teams that are currently ranked in the top 25 of the playoff rankings. Their one loss is to a top 10 team.

Ohio State’s top 25 wins are arguably stronger than Alabama’s. Like the Crimson Tide, the Buckeyes also have three wins over top 25 teams. But two of those teams are in the top 10. Alabama does not have any wins over top 10 opponents. One of the Buckeyes losses is to the Oklahoma Sooners. The Sooners should definitely be a top four team when the final rankings are released.

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However, Ohio State’s other loss is bad enough to keep them out of the playoff despite their conference championship win. The Buckeyes lost to the unranked Iowa Hawkeyes in early November. The Hawkeyes blew out Ohio State 55-24.

The playoff committee has no problem with leaving a conference champion out of the top four in favor of a one-loss team with no conference title win. Ohio State made the top four last year over last year’s Big Ten Champion Penn State.

Alabama does not have a conference title. But they also did not get blown out by a middle of the road opponent. Saban is right to say that his team is more worthy of a playoff berth. But on Sunday we will find out if the committee agrees.

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