Five Days For the Season: Alabama's Game Week Mindset for SEC Championship, CFP Hopes
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The penultimate College Football Rankings for the 2023 season will be released Tuesday night. And if it's anything like it's been for the first four editions, Alabama will be No. 8.
Despite a ranked win over LSU the first weekend of November, and two SEC road victories at Kentucky and Auburn, the Crimson Tide has stayed put both in the national polls and the CFP committee's rankings week after week.
Alabama has its last chance to make an impression on the committee this Saturday with a matchup against No. 1 Georgia in the SEC title game. Crimson Tide players like left guard Tyler Booker say they aren't paying too much attention to the rankings. Instead, they are focusing on what they need to do against the top-ranked Bulldogs this weekend.
"We try to control what we can control," Booker said Tuesday. "What we can control as far the poll and the committee goes is going out and dominating this weekend and really forcing their hand."
The Crimson Tide has been No. 8 in the CFP rankings each week and ranked eighth in the polls behind Georgia, Michigan, Washington, Florida State, Oregon, Ohio State and Texas. The top four teams are all undefeated and will play in conference championship games this weekend. Teams five through eight have the same record at 11-1 and will also play this weekend outside of Ohio State. But the Longhorns have the head-to-head edge over Alabama, which has been part of what's blocking the Tide's ascension in the rankings.
The players don't feel disrespected, but senior defensive back Malachi Moore said the team's kind of known this was how it was going to be since Week 3 when Alabama played poorly at USF coming off the loss to Texas.
Since that moment though, Alabama has handled business and put itself in a position to get back in the CFP hunt by going undefeated in conference play for just the sixth time in the Nick Saban era. The Crimson Tide can add the best win in the country to its playoff resume against Georgia this weekend.
"We kind of knew that it is this game kind of be the deciding game for this type of situation," Moore said. "But I don't think that needs to be our focus this week. I think our focus this week is to go out there and execute and have championship-level preparation. And make sure everybody knows how big this game is. How important it is to all of our fans. We just have to go out and execute and play together and play the 60 minutes.”
Moore believes that everything else outside of Alabama will take care of itself. The SEC has never been left out of the College Football Playoff since its inaugural season in 2014.
Preparation was key theme among Alabama's defensive players. Fifth-year defensive lineman Justin Eboigbe has played in two SEC championship games during his Alabama career.
"Right now we’re just thinking about, we’ve got five days of preparation. That’s it," Eboigbe said. "Give everything you’ve got for these five days. You know, there’s guys that are banged up, guys are hurt, but we can give five days of great preparation, great mindset, great attention to detail because it’s something we want to accomplish.
"Ever since Week 2 we realized we still had our goals and dreams ahead of us as long as we control what we can control. And we feel like this is the prime position that we are in. To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. They’re the best right now, and in order to be what we want to be, we’ve got to go through them.”
