Did Alabama Get Snubbed From the CFP in Favor of SMU?

Last year, the college football playoff committee made the controversial decision to leave Florida State out of the college football playoffs despite an undefeated season from the Seminoles. As a result of that decision, Alabama would sneak into the playoffs, only to get bounced by the eventual national champion Michigan Wolverines in the Rose Bowl. However, this year Alabama, with a 9-3 record, has been left out of the college football playoffs in favor of SMU, who has a 10-2 record, for the last at-large bid in the expanded playoff format. With SMU having one fewer loss, it would initially make sense for them to get put in over Alabama, but this decision has a lot of people up in arms.

Firstly, let’s look at SMU’s season so far. The Mustangs ended the regular season with a tremendous 10-2 record with their only losses coming against a ranked BYU team in week 3 and a ranked Clemson team in the ACC Championship game last week. They have routinely blown out opponents with an average margin of victory of 15 points this season. This is mostly due to their explosive offense which ranks eighth in the country with an average of 37 points scored per game this season. However, SMU’s strength of schedule may highlight that they are more of a fraud than a contender. SMU’s strength of schedule is 60th in the nation as the ACC has been weaker than normal and SMU has taken advantage of their bad opponents by blowing them out. However, in the two games where they faced current top-25 teams, they were 0-2. So although SMU has a great record against bad teams, they haven’t proven this season that they can beat tougher teams in college football which will likely result in them getting bounced early in the college football playoffs.

Now, let’s evaluate Alabama’s season. In Alabama’s first year following Nick Saban’s retirement, the program has taken a comparative step back going 9-3. Alabama started out really strong this season and even rose to the #1 spot in the AP poll rankings after a win against the mighty Georgia Bulldogs. However, throughout the rest of the season, Alabama would suffer strange losses to Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and Oklahoma which would end up crushing their playoff hopes. When evaluating Alabama’s strength of schedule, which is ranked number 16th in the nation, it is clear to see that Alabama had a much tougher road to the playoffs than SMU. Despite this tougher schedule, Alabama actually has a higher margin of victory than SMU with an average scoring margin of 16 points per game this season. However, my great argument for why I believe that Alabama got snubbed from the playoffs is that Alabama was 3-1 against current top-25 teams, while SMU was 0-2. If the college football playoff committee wanted to truly put in the 12 best teams in the nation, they should value teams that they know can compete and win against some of the best teams in the country. When SMU gets bounced by Penn State in the first round, don’t be surprised if the committee starts to favor SEC teams for those at-large playoff spots in the future.