Bama left out: Who’s to blame?

Alabama has been left out of the College Football Play-Off, and the Crimson Tide – and SEC – are absolutely fuming about it.

Greg Byrne has said that they would revise their non-conference schedule, while Greg Sankey is just about angrier that they didn’t get four bids – instead of three. Even though that the SEC – if you’d gone deeper this season- had an awful lot of mediocrity there.

So who’s to blame?

ALABAMA THE TEAM

Don’t lose to a not-great Vanderbilt — especially in an environment that’s not exactly ‘tough’. Just don’t.

And then during the time that the play-off Committee guys are really interested in what’s going on, get blown out on the road by 5-6 Oklahoma.

SMU lost to BYU at the start of the season, and lost to Clemson to a 56-yard field goal at the end of it. They also made their Conference Championship Game. Alabama did not.

THE SEC, ESPN AND GREG SANKEY

Nick Saban campaigned for NINE YEARS for a nine-game schedule.

Sankey and the SEC wanted more money for their conference, and said to ESPN: “We want you to pony up for more in-conference SEC games”. ESPN – in the nicest possible way – told them where to stick it.

Sankey could have gone against his schools (Even though he – like Roger Goodell – is merely a spokesman for his cartel) and pushed for nine games. But he didn’t. And there was one-less data point. Had Alabama added another big school to its collection (say, Texas A&M) and won, there would be no arguments. But when you lose a quarter of your eight game schedule to shitty teams, then it’s a pretty terrible data point.

If Sankey or Mike Slive before him had lobbied his team members eve and said: “Look, this is for the good of the conference. True, we’ll have to take less money from ESPN. It won’t be much. We’ll have another SEC in-conference games, which will be good for your revenue in terms of stadium ticket sales. And you will see an opponent you don’t see regularly, if at all”, the SEC would have been ahead of the game. Now they are behind it – arrogant enough to think a third of their conference would automatically fill big spots.

ALABAMA- THE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT

Greg Byrne can get as pissy as he wants about his team not making the play-offs, but SCHEDULE BETTER OUT-OF-CONFERENCE TEAMS. Byrne will claim that they scheduled three teams, but one of these were from a Power-4 Conference (Wisconsin, who finished 5-7). Their other opponents in South Florida and Western Kentucky.

If Alabama scheduled better out-of-conference teams, this again wouldn’t have been a problem.

SMU scheduled TWO Power-4 opponents.

WHAT’S THE GOOD NEWS FROM THIS?

THE NINE-GAME SCHEDULE IS BACK ON THE TABLE

Three quarters of the SEC teams will now worry about not getting in like Bama failed to do. So they’ll push to go to nine games. Screw the money, it’s about getting to the Super Bowl, baby.

MINOR SCHOOLS GONNA GET PAID

As mentioned, Greg Byrne has already pissed and moaned about the team ‘re-evaluating the schedule”. That will mean that Alabama will play shittier teams in the future to give themselves a better record. Suddenly the basketball schools finally can have this conversation: “Hey [SEC school], my buddy told me that they’re going to pay $1m to play you next year. Well, that price just went up. $2m or you don’t get us.” These pay-offs could mean generational wealth for smaller schools, and that’s great.

RECRUITS AND TRANSFERS GONNA MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY

With the worry about getting in the play-off, recruits and transfer are going to get even more money from SEC schools to avoid the problems that Alabama had and be like a Tennessee and unproblematically waltz into the play-offs. Buy them Maseratis, future SEC recruits!