Alabama and the SEC Are, Once Again, Getting Their Way

The Crimson Tide jumping Miami in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings lays bare the sport’s dubious power structure.

The Crimson Tide look to be in position to claim a College Football Playoff berth if SMU beats Clemson in the ACC championship. / Will McLelland-Imagn Images

“This just has to go incredibly well.” — Greg Sankey, Oct. 10, 2024.

The Southeastern Conference commissioner said that at a hotel in Nashville with fellow college football strongman Tony Petitti of the Big Ten Conference sitting next to him. Athletic directors from the two leagues had just met, ostensibly to discuss the myriad issues facing college athletics, but also with the underlying potential to further distance themselves from their competition. When those two get together, everyone else should be nervous.

Sankey was talking about the launch of the 12-team College Football Playoff. It seemed like an implied threat—take care of our leagues and we won’t break away from the rest of college athletics. It should be noted that Sankey and Petitti have been ceded control by the rest of the sport’s power brokers to largely decide the format of the playoff starting in 2027. They have all the juice in college sports right now.

Two months later, lo and behold. It is in fact going incredibly well for Sankey, his league and the Alabama Crimson Tide. As usual. 

It is going considerably less well for the Atlantic Coast Conference, commissioner Jim Phillips and the Miami Hurricanes. Also as usual.

Bama is doing it again to the ACC. Last year, the 12–1 Tide controversially moved ahead of the 13–0 Florida State Seminoles for the last spot in the four-team CFP. This year, three-loss Alabama has effectively boxed out two-loss Miami in the penultimate CFP rankings for what could be the last at-large berth in the 12-team field.

Not much can bring together Florida State and Miami fans, but simmering anger at Alabama, the SEC and the CFP might be the bonding agent.

Sankey wields perhaps more power than anyone in college football. / Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The field is not finalized, and won’t be until the bracket is released Sunday. But the positioning of Alabama ahead of Miami is a done deal. CFP selection committee chair Warde Manuel said “we will not adjust those teams,” referring to those who have completed their regular seasons.

So that’s it. Miami is out. It doesn’t mean that Alabama is in—another ACC team, the Clemson Tigers, could come sailing in from outside the bracket to push out the Tide by winning the conference’s automatic bid against the SMU Mustangs on Saturday. But it does mean the Hurricanes no longer have a path into the playoff.

Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich registered his disapproval on social media Tuesday night. And Phillips weighed in sharply as well.

“We are certainly pleased that SMU moved up in the rankings and that the committee continued to recognize the Mustangs’ incredible season, which should unequivocally earn them a playoff spot, regardless of this weekend’s outcome,” Phillips said. “With that said, we are also incredibly shocked and disappointed that Miami dropped six spots to No. 12.

“Miami has more wins and fewer losses than the team directly ahead of them and a dominant victory over an SEC team whose late-season surge includes a win over No. 13 Ole Miss. Moreover, with two losses by a combined nine points—to a ranked Syracuse team and a Georgia Tech team that just took No. 5 Georgia to eight overtimes—Miami absolutely deserves better from the committee.”

It’s hard to feel too sorry for the 13th team in a 12-team playoff—this potential last spot boils down to a resume contest among flawed teams. But it’s also hard to feel good about the premise of fairness and opportunity in a sport where the SEC always gets its way. Especially when Alabama is involved.

Look, the league has earned a lot of respect for dominating football over the previous 18 years—13 titles in that span speak volumes. But respect has morphed into a hardened brand bias that sometimes extends to teams that don’t always deserve the benefit of the doubt. Much of the country suspects that, in the eyes of broadcasters, poll voters and, most importantly, selection committee members, losses in the SEC almost don’t count. And the cynicism is growing deeper.

Under a laudable grilling from ESPN’s Rece Davis, Manuel delineated the reasons why the Tide are ahead of the Canes. 

He noted Alabama’s 3–1 record against the CFP’s own top 25, compared to Miami’s 0–1 record. Fair enough.

He noted Alabama’s 6–1 record against teams that were better than .500, compared to Miami’s 4–2. That’s a useful delineation if you’re trying to prop up the Tide, because here are the records when you drop it down to record against teams that were .500 or better: Miami is 6–2, Alabama is 6–3.

And then Manuel pointed out the Hurricanes lost two of their last three games. That’s a problem.

This is supposed to be a full-body-of-work assessment, not a barometer of who is hot at the end and who is not. Because if it’s that, the 9–3 South Carolina Gamecocks should be higher than No. 14 and out of the tournament. The Gamecocks are on a six-game winning streak, half of them against ranked opponents.

Miami QB Cam Ward and the Hurricanes likely saw their playoff chances vanish Tuesday with the release of the latest CFP rankings. / Rich Barnes-Imagn Images

And while it’s true Miami lost two of its last three games, they were to the 7–5 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and 9–3 Syracuse Orange. Neither was anywhere near as bad as the absolute dud the Crimson Tide dropped in a three-touchdown loss to the 6–6 Oklahoma Sooners on Nov. 23. 

As seems to sometimes be the case, criteria that works against one team doesn’t work against Bama. Teflon Tide.

The first time it became clear the committee might be excessively smitten by Alabama was the third CFP rankings on Nov. 19. The Tide defeated an FCS opponent three days earlier, Mercer, and somehow rose three spots in the rankings, from No. 10 to No. 7. That happened to be one spot ahead of Miami, which did not play that weekend.

The following week was when Alabama was flattened by Oklahoma and dropped six spots, to No. 13. Miami moved up two more, to No. 6. And then came this week, when the Hurricanes lost by four points to a Syracuse team that entered the CFP top 25. Alabama jumped up two spots on the dubious strength of a two-touchdown home win over 5–7 Auburn.

And now they’re frozen there—Alabama ahead of Miami. It was yet another comeback from the near-dead for the Zombie Tide. Yet another victory for the SEC, which is positioned to tie the Big Ten for most teams in the tournament with four, unless Clemson can do something about it.

It is going incredibly well. As Greg Sankey decreed it must.