Column: Alabama Leaves No Doubt after Beating Georgia, Tide is One of Four Best Teams
Jalen Milroe has been pretty calculated and reserved with the media all season long, so when the Alabama quarterback declared he had something to say to the College Football Playoff committee, you know he means it.
"Georgia was No. 1, right?" Milroe said. "We beat the No. 1 team. What do you consider us? At the end of the day, that's out of our reach, but the biggest thing we've got to do is trust the process, keep getting better. But we beat the best team in the nation considerably, so, what do y'all consider us?"
Alabama snapped Georgia's 29-game winning streak to upset the Bulldogs 27-24 in the SEC Championship Game Saturday night, proving why the Crimson Tide is one of the best four teams in the country and deserving of a playoff spot.
Since losing to Alabama two years ago in the SEC title game, Georgia has been on one of the most dominant runs in college football history. The Bulldogs have been viewed by the CFP committee as the top team in the country for the last three weeks.
Yet in front of a crowd skewed likely 70/30 in the Bulldogs' favor in their home state, the Crimson Tide's strong second quarter put a bookend on Georgia's run as the kings of college football.
Any other year since the CFP's inception in 2014, the SEC Champion has always gotten in the playoffs. Some years (2017 and 2021), two SEC teams have earned spots in the final four.
But across the landscape of this year's college football season with multiple undefeated Power Five champions and the one team Alabama lost to ahead of it in the rankings, the Tide's spot is less certain–leaving Saban to campaign for a spot for this year's team.
"The message that I would send is, we won the SEC," Saban said after the game. "We beat the No. 1 team in the country, which everybody thought on the committee was the No. 1 team in the country. And they won 29 straight games. So if we needed to do something to pass the eye test, I guess that probably contributed to it significantly."
Alabama now has wins over teams ranked 1, 11, 13 and 21 in the latest CFP rankings with the lone loss coming in week two to No. 7 Texas, who won the Big 12 Championship earlier in the day Saturday. No team has better wins.
Outside linebacker Dallas Turner was content to let the Crimson Tide's performance on the field do the talking for the committee, but Tyler Booker was a little more blunt.
"What else do you want from us?” Booker asked “What is this, 11 games straight? We’ve got one of the toughest schedules in the country. We beat the No. 1 team. I feel like that should be more than enough to put us in.
“You want the best games, you want the best viewership, you know our Alabama fans are going to show up. You know SEC fans are going to show up. We’ve got one of the biggest brands in the country. As far as a football standpoint, yes. But marketing as well. How could you leave the SEC champion out?”
This year's Alabama team has shown marked improvement since that loss to the Longhorns inside Bryant-Denny Stadium back in early September. It was the largest home loss of the Saban era, and then Alabama went on the road to USF the next week and put on a abysmal performance in an uninspiring 17-3 win with Milroe watching from the sidelines.
Very few would have predicted where Alabama would end up after a rough opening to the season, and Saban says his team can't be judged just on those performances alone.
"We're not the same team we were when we played Texas," Saban said. "We're not the same team when we played South Florida, so I don't think we should be considered as that team right now. And I think people should look at the whole body of work in terms of what the team was able to accomplish and what they were able to do.
"And I think this team is one of the four best teams and one of the teams that's deserving to be in the playoffs."
Milroe was handed the reigns back in week four against Ole Miss, and helped Alabama pick up its first ranked win of the season. And week by week, Milroe, the offense and the team improved.
In October, he threw for a season high in a hostile environment at Texas A&M and led a second-half comeback against Tennessee. In November, Milroe out-dueled Heisman frontrunner Jayden Daniels to help Alabama to victory over top-15 LSU. The Tide also snagged road conference wins at Kentucky and Auburn. Yet, Alabama stayed stagnant in the polls and CFP rankings at No. 8.
And Saturday night in Atlanta, Alabama topped it all with the win over Georgia to clinch the program's eighth SEC title over the last 12 seasons.
The win over Georgia shows that Alabama hasn't just been lucky or getting hot at the right team, but the Crimson Tide is one of the best teams in the country and would likely be favored over any team currently ranked above them.
As SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey pointed out in media appearances this week, the conference has an unparalleled track record in the CFP, winning six of nine championships and four in a row. Alabama has only lost in the semifinals one time in seven appearances with three national titles.
"Of course we should be in the playoffs," running back Roydell Williams said. "There is no question about it."
At the time of writing this column, Washington and Texas have essentially already clinched spots in this year's playoff with wins the Pac 12 Championship Game and Big 12 Championship game respectively. This leaves two spots for some combination of Alabama, Michigan, Florida State and potentially Ohio State and Georgia.
In the remaining hours of championship Saturday, it could all become a moot point if No. 2 Michigan or No. 4 Florida State lose to clear an easy Crimson path to the playoffs. Regardless, when the CFP Committee reveals its four teams Sunday afternoon, Alabama should be one of them.
