Alabama
Opinion: Alabama making playoff wouldn’t be a farce; just more of the same unwritten rule
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The College Football Playoff committee publicly lists only four specific criteria it uses to rank teams. That list includes strength of schedule and head-to-head competition.
But a fifth unwritten nugget has become apparent throughout the playoff’s existence: Alabama always, always, always will receive the benefit of the doubt.
You didn’t really think the committee would embrace Miami, Mississippi or South Carolina over Alabama for the final spot in this 12-team bracket, did you? That Script “A” casts a spell on the committee. The Alabama brand endures, even after it loses 24-3 to an opponent that finished 6-6.
Of course Alabama would become the first three-loss team admitted into the 12-team playoff. Who else would it be?
Mississippi, with its lavish history that includes never appearing in the SEC championship game? Not when a storied blue blood like Alabama shares Ole Miss’ 9-3 record.
Sorry, Rebels, you looked awfully good smashing Georgia and South Carolina. And you do use the script font on your helmets, but there’s no “A” in Ole Miss.
Just last year, the committee chose 12-1 Alabama over 13-0 Florida State. That became the only time an undefeated Power Four champion got left out of the four-team playoff.
And in 2017, Alabama joined Ohio State as the only teams from a conference to ever qualify for the playoff without winning their division. That Alabama squad went on to win the national championship, giving future CFP committees permission to keep awarding the Tide the benefit of the doubt.
This latest feat would be the Tide’s most impressive, reaching the playoff despite losing to two 6-6 teams, one of which is Vanderbilt.
ACC title game still matters to CFP bracket
Alabama hasn’t quite pulled this off. The committee, during Tuesday’s rankings update, slotted the Tide to the 11 seed, earmarking for Alabama the final at-large spot. The ink is not dry.
The committee could redirect that final at-large bid to SMU or Boise State if either loses its conference championship game to bid-stealing Clemson or UNLV, respectively.
SMU ranks three spots ahead of Alabama; Boise State sits one spot ahead of the Tide.
SMU or Boise State can only really feel safe, though, if they win their conference crowns and capture the accompanying auto bids. Forget the rankings: Do you really trust that if SMU loses to Clemson in the ACC championship game, the committee would favor the Mustangs over Alabama?
Can’t you just hear CFP committee chairman Warde Manuel explaining the group’s pick of Alabama over SMU? While the committee respects SMU’s 11 victories, let’s not forget that just a few weeks ago, Alabama destroyed Mercer.
Alabama getting playoff bid wouldn’t be like last season’s farce
A year ago, Alabama farcically qualified over Florida State, the ACC’s undefeated champion, because the Seminoles’ quarterback got hurt, and the committee’s crystal ball said FSU wouldn’t hold up in the playoff without its quarterback, even though it had just beaten Florida on the road without its quarterback.
In contrast, this is no farce. It’s just a show of Alabama getting the crimson rose to emerge from a bubble full of flawed résumés.
Legitimate reasons exist to anoint Alabama as the least-bad choice. Listen to Manuel spell out the rationale for putting Alabama ahead of 10-2 Miami.
“Alabama is 3-1 against current top-25 teams, and Miami is 0-1,” Manuel explained on ESPN. “Alabama is 6-1 against teams above .500, and Miami is 4-2.”
Can’t argue that. Alabama wouldn’t be a good choice, because no good choice exists. Miami would be a worse choice. Alabama’s strength of schedule outranks that of Miami and Ole Miss, the two teams directly behind Alabama in the rankings.
The Rebels lost on their home field to Kentucky, the SEC’s second-worst team, and Miami lacks a signature victory. That’s the thing about expanding the playoff from four to 12 teams. The more teams you add, the worse an at-large playoff résumé looks, and the better a 9-3 blue blood looks.
Of the mangled collection of bubble teams, I would have chosen Ole Miss, by virtue of its dominant victories against Georgia and South Carolina. No playoff team would want to play the Rebels when they’re at their best, but they had their chances, and they blew enough of them, so dry your tears.
How about another 9-3 team, South Carolina? Well, the Gamecocks lost to Alabama and got blown out by Ole Miss, so forget that.
Last year, the committee snubbed a deserving, undefeated team. This year, it’s difficult to vigorously argue that anyone is truly getting snubbed, in the purest sense of the word.
Anyway, you had to see this coming.
Although you won’t find it listed in the CFP rules, because it’s unwritten, by now we all understand: If the committee can find any reason to select Alabama, it will.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.
No. 1 Alabama’s 2026 season is rolling into Oklahoma City for the Women’s College World Series after the Crimson Tide won its first two games of the weekend against No. 16 LSU in the super regional round at Rhoads Stadium.
It was more dominance from the Tide pitching staff as Jocelyn Briski pitched a complete-game shutout on Friday in the 7-0 win, and Briski earned the save in Game 2 after freshman Vic Moten allowed only run over four innings in her first super regional start for the 4-1 victory.
Alabama got offensive contributions from different parts of the lineup with Alexis Pupillo having the best weekend with four hits, including two home runs.
Next up for the Crimson Tide (54-7), is a date with No. 8 UCLA (52-8) this Thursday on the opening day of the Women’s College World Series. But before then, here are three of my biggest takeaways from Alabama’s performance in super regionals:
Alabama has the pitching to win a national title
Eight teams across the country punched their tickets to Oklahoma City over the weekend. Some, like Alabama and Tennessee, are expected to be there. Some, like Mississippi State, will be making their first appearance at the WCWS. And some familiar faces, like Oklahoma and Florida, will not be in OKC starting Thursday.
Oklahoma and Florida have a combined 35 WCWS appearances and 10 national titles. Either the Sooners or the Gators have won eight of the last 11 national titles dating back to 2014. Neither team had the pitching to get out of Supers. Oklahoma gave up 18 runs across three games to Mississippi State. Florida allowed 28 runs over the three games against Texas Tech. Alabama has allowed one run over five total games played in the NCAA tournament.
The competition was elevated this weekend as Alabama played an SEC foe in LSU compared to the mid-major schools during the regional round, and the Tide’s top-two pitchers still made it extremely difficult on opposing batters.
Briski and Moten continued to limit free passes with just two total walks compared to 23 strikeouts over the two wins. Briski was even dealing with a little sickness on Friday and appeared to shut down the Tigers with ease.
Anything can happen in Oklahoma City, and Alabama will be tested off the bat against a UCLA offense that leads the nation in home runs with 196. But the Tide should have the arms to keep it in any game and make a deep run at the WCWS.
Weather-tested before OKC
Alabama and LSU had to sit through two separate weather delays on Saturday that lasted about four hours total. As Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy pointed out multiple times throughout the weekend, these players are used to dealing with weather delays from all the years they’ve spent growing up playing travel softball.
But just because they are used to it doesn’t mean that a weather delay is ideal. When your team has all the momentum, any sort of break literally stops that momentum. Alabama was rolling before the first weather delay and had just taken a 4-1 lead in the fourth inning.
The offense did not score again (credit to LSU pitcher Jayden Heavener), but the team still came out of both breaks with the energy needed to close out the game.
Weather delays in Oklahoma City at the WCWS are almost an inevitability. I mean, the city’s lone major professional sports franchise is literally named the Thunder. Several super regionals around the country were affected by weather this weekend, so it won’t just be Alabama that is prepared, but coming fresh off two long delays gives the Crimson Tide that recent experience in case it arises in OKC.
Offense steps up without Wells at her best
Sophomore transfer Brooke Wells has been the engine that powers the Alabama offense this year. For most of the year, she has led the team in batting average, home runs and RBIs. She still leads the team in HRs (23) and RBIs (65.) During super regionals against LSU, Wells went 0-for-8 with five strikeouts.
Alabama still managed to put up 11 total runs across the two games against a solid LSU pitching staff without its best hitter reaching base. Alexis Pupillo brought the power with a home run in each game, and Jena Young had two hits out of the leadoff spot in Game 1, including a bases-clearing double.
The bottom of the lineup came through as well with Salen Hawkins collecting a hit in each game out of the eight-spot. Her two-out, two-RBI single in the fourth inning of Game 2 provided the cushion Alabama needed to put away the Tigers
Wells is used to playing in big games and stepping up to the plate in big moments for the Crimson Tide at times this season, but this is her first trip to the NCAA tournament. Alabama can win without her reaching base–– the Tide proved it this weekend. But in order for Alabama to make a deep run in OKC and have a good chance of winning its first national title since 2012, it likely will need more production from the slugger.
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The Alabama baseball program has been selected by the NCAA as one of the 16 host sites for next weekend’s NCAA baseball regional. The Crimson Tide were chosen after finishing fourth in the SEC and amassing a 37-19 record with four sweeps in conference play.
The seeding is set to be announced on Monday at 11 a.m. CT, where Alabama will find out if it is chosen as a top-eight seed and will find out what opponents are coming to Tuscaloosa next weekend. A top-eight seed puts the Crimson Tide program in position to host the Super Regional round the following weekend.
“This team’s won six SEC weekends,” Alabama head coach Rob Vaugh said. “We’ve swept four of them I believe. We’ve won 18 games. And this team’s just battle-tested. Like, last year’s group, we didn’t get swept last year, which was great. It’s cool. But at the end of the day, we also didn’t do some of the special things that we’ve done this year.
“I think this group is just, they’re confident and I think they believe in each other. And I think obviously the three dudes on the front have been good. Obviously, you miss a guy like Riley Quick from last year, that guy was pretty special. But all those guys have gotten better. Tyler Fay’s a better version of himself right now than he was last year.
“Zane Adams is a better version of himself. Myles Upchurch is a young phenom that’s emerged as a young superstar for us. I think when you can run three starters out like that, that gives you a chance against anybody. And they give you a shot.”
Alabama is 0-4 in the last two seasons in the regional round, losing games as a two-seed in the Hattiesburg Regional and the Tallahassee Regional. The Crimson Tide last hosted an NCAA Regional in 2023, winning three games in a row to advance to the Winston-Salem Super Regional. The program looks to return to the College World Series in Omaha for the first time since 1999.
NCAA Baseball Regional Sites (Alphabetically by Location)
|
Host |
Location |
Conference |
Record |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Georgia |
Athens, Ga. |
SEC |
45-12 |
|
Georgia Tech |
Atlanta |
ACC |
48-9 |
|
Auburn |
Auburn, Ala. |
SEC |
38-19 |
|
Texas |
Austin, Texas |
SEC |
40-13 |
|
North Carolina |
Chapel Hill, N.C. |
ACC |
45-11-1 |
|
Texas A&M |
College Station, Texas |
SEC |
39-14 |
|
Oregon |
Eugene, Ore. |
BIG 10 |
40-16 |
|
Florida |
Gainesville, Fla. |
SEC |
39-19 |
|
Southern Miss |
Hattiesburg, Miss. |
Sun Belt |
43-15 |
|
Kansas |
Lawrence, Kan. |
BIG 12 |
42-16 |
|
Nebraska |
Lincoln, Neb. |
BIG 10 |
42-14 |
|
UCLA |
Los Angeles |
BIG 10 |
51-6 |
|
West Virginia |
Morgantown, Wva. |
BIG 12 |
39-14 |
|
Mississippi State |
Starkville, Miss. |
SEC |
40-17 |
|
Florida State |
Tallahassee, Fla. |
ACC |
38-17 |
|
Alabama |
Tuscaloosa, Ala. |
SEC |
37-19 |
This story will be updated with game dates and times once the NCAA bracket is fully revealed on Monday morning.
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