Kalen DeBoer Reacts to Alabama's Drop in College Football Playoff Rankings

The Crimson Tide fell six spots in the College Football Playoff Top 25 after its loss to Oklahoma.

Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer watches during a college football game between the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and the Alabama Crimson Tide at Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Okla., Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. Oklahoma won 24-3. | BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The last two Alabama football seasons have not produced favorable results against the Oklahoma Sooners in November, with a 23-21 loss this past Saturday in Tuscaloosa being the latest blemish for Alabama in the series, during which the Crimson Tide has never been victorious in the regular season.

Alabama (8-2, 6-1 SEC) won eight games in a row prior to facing Oklahoma and was the No. 4 team in the College Football Playoff rankings going into that matchup. Following the defeat, the Crimson Tide dropped by six places to No. 10, behind two other 8-2 teams: the Sooners and Notre Dame.

"My whole focus, and this is [the] honest-to-God truth, I mean, I didn't even see the show," Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer said Wednesday during the weekly SEC coaches' teleconference. "I saw the rankings pop up on [the] ESPN app on my phone, took a quick look at it, and went back to work."

DeBoer's squad has work to do before the regular season is over. It's not a done deal that Alabama will make the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta despite its 6-0 start to conference play, and a night game inside Jordan-Hare Stadium awaits on Nov. 29 as final SEC game for the Crimson Tide before then. It is must-win for Alabama's conference title and College Football Playoff aspirations.

"I just know that we have a ton of quality wins. I know that they look really strongly at the losses," DeBoer said. "Last week was against a very good football team, and I think we've played a lot of really good football. We've shown consistency and improvement throughout the year, and a lot of improvement."

DeBoer is right about the impact of the losses on a program's position in the rankings. Of the two-loss teams in the top 10, Alabama by far has the worst one, since Florida State sits at 5-5 despite beating the Crimson Tide in the season opener. Alabama lost two road games last season to unranked teams (one of them was Oklahoma), which kept it out of the first 12-team playoff.

"We gotta do our job here the rest of the way and make sure we just keep taking care of business," he said. "We have a lot of things that we are playing for. The main thing, though, is that we keep improving because there are certainly areas that we continue to address and stress."