While Alabama football finds itself in the top 4 of the College Football Playoff rankings, Texas football is to blame.
The College Football Playoff committee’s biggest fears came true last Saturday night when No. 8 Alabama upset No. 1 Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. How could the committee leave out the SEC champion — something it had never done since the playoffs began — and, better yet, how could it then leave out Texas footballwho also won the Big 12 Championship?
The point of contention for Nick SabanThe team going into the top 4 was that if Texas won their respective conference championship, then how could they be left out while Alabama was in? They would surpass the 12 great champions. The Longhorns earned the best win of the regular season by defeating the Crimson Tide on the road in Tuscaloosa in Week 2.
Their only blemish was that of their great rival in Oklahoma a few weeks later. If Texas had been upset by Oklahoma State in the Big 12 title game, then it’s a moot point: Alabama is the better team with just one loss and a win against the No. 1 team in the country . But that didn’t happen and the Longhorns routed the Cowboys by a score of 49-21.
Week 2 Texas-Alabama game was bigger than initially thought
If you think back to the 2023 college football season, the Week 2 game between Texas and Alabama is a key moment. Many thought that with Texas’ double-digit victory over Alabama (34-24), we had finally seen the beginning of the end for Alabama, with a second straight year without the 18-time national champions in the postseason .
It seemed appropriate; Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was one of the few former Saban assistants to beat his old boss. Not only that, but the way the Longhorns handled the Crimson Tide that September night, where they were able to control the entire game, made it feel like it was the end of an era, and perhaps be the start of a new one with Texas. finally being able to say these words: “We are back”.
It was the first sign of a Texas team in nearly two decades that felt superior to all others in the country. But then when the Longhorns lost in the Red River Rivalry game, it brought back a flood of memories, reminding everyone of years of upheaval, where the previous team had collapsed and didn’t even have a conference championship to celebrate.
With plenty of scares along the way during the 2023 season – they only beat Kansas State and TCU in back-to-back weeks by a total of six points – Texas football found itself back in the Big 12 championship, win their first title since 2009. Would that be enough to justify a top-4 ranking after spending the entire five weeks in the CFP rankings at No. 7?
It was, but not without some probably unwanted company.
Alabama took advantage of its defeat against Texas football to propel itself into the top 4
As per usual, Alabama Football made life difficult for everyone, including the committees. Beating the top-ranked team in the country, for a conference championship no less, presented plenty of arguments for them to earn a top-4 finish. But to do that, they would have to move up four spots, and over Texas, who beat them.
So that the CFP committee justify Alabama’s ranking in the top 4even above a 13-0 conference champion Florida State team, they also had to put Texas in the top 4. If Texas fails to force its way into the top 4 and Alabama has done so, then the committee will have an even bigger problem to solve than what it is doing now, with its legitimacy being called into even greater question.
THE #3 Longhorns became an unexpected catalyst for the resurgence of the No. 4 Crimson Tide. that of Alabama defeat against Texas, although once thought to be the beginning of a downfall for the entire program, ironically propelled the team forward. Alabama suffered its loss to the Longhorns all season long…all the way to the College Football Playoff.
