Saturday afternoon the Alabama Crimson Tide hosted the Oklahoma Sooners at Bryant-Denny Stadium for a top 15 battle. Alabama lost 23-21 despite holding Oklahoma’s captain and quarterback John Mateer to just 138 yards passing.
Now the Crimson Tide hold a record of 8-2, with an SEC conference record of 6-1 with just one conference game remaining.
That game will come in the final week of the season when the Tide travel to Jordan-Hare Stadium to take on their bitter rivals with a trip to the College Football Playoff on the line.
Now that the stage is set, here’s how devastating that Alabama loss really was.
For starters, if Alabama wins out, they will still make the conference championship game on one condition; Texas loses one of their remaining two games.
Texas plays Georgia in Athens on Saturday night, then ends the season with the undefeated Texas A&M Aggies back in Austin.
Alabama has the tie breaker over Georgia via the head-to-head in September. As well as owning the tie breaker over one-loss Ole Miss due to strength of schedule.
This means that, despite Saturday’s Week 12 loss, Alabama should be considered a favorite to play for the conference championship in Atlanta.
Should Alabama Even Want To Make The Championship Game?
This exact scenario has been a hotly contested issue since the inception of the 12-team playoff.
The CFP selection committee set the precedent last season that losses in conference championship games would not impact seeding. This means that for a two-loss team like Alabama, the SEC championship is an extra game that earns you a bye if you win, but does nothing but put your team in harms way if you lose.
Here’s a hypothetical:
Say Alabama enters the SEC championship week as the 7th seed. Texas A&M is the 2nd seed as an undefeated SEC team. Ole Miss is 5th after winning out, and Georgia did the same and have earned the 8th seed.
The Aggies, as an undefeated regular season SEC team, would now be in danger of missing out on a bye because they had to play one more game than Ole Miss and Georgia.
In that same scenario, Alabama as the 7th seed plays Texas A&M and loses. Now, in a week that Ole Miss and Georgia had off, Alabama was forced to play the second best team in the country and will now have to play one of the other two SEC teams in the first round of the playoffs.
Week 12 Loss Is Really, Really Bad
The Week 12 loss could prove to be detrimental for the Crimson Tide.
Not because it was an unforgiveable upset; the Sooners are a top ten team with a pre-season Heisman favorite at quarterback and one of the highest paid coaches in football.
But because of the post season implications.
Winning championships is hard, there’s no easy way through this conference. But the road just got a lot harder for the Crimson Tide.
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