Alabama’s Nick Saban irked by 2022 College Football Playoff omission: ‘Do you really get the best teams?’ : Nick Saban, the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team, feels that his team ought to have qualified for the College Football Playoff in 2022, even though there are still a little less than three months before the 2023 college football season.
This is even though there are still a little less than three months until the start of the 2023 college football season. Even though there are still a little over three months before the beginning of the college football season 2023, this is already happening.
Saban highlighted his frustration with the fact that the CFP Selection Committee valued overall record above other variables, including power ratings and sportsbook odds, which generally favour blue blood like Alabama, in an interview with Joel Klatt of Fox Sports.
According to Saban, all that is done to determine which teams go to the playoffs at the end of the season is to see which ones have won the most games. However, do you have access to the best teams?
Why aren’t we participating in the postseason? I wanted to know when they first let me know that we would be a favourite versus three of the four teams that made it to the finals.
Alabama suffered a disappointing (roughly speaking) 11-2 record overall after entering the season ranked first in the preseason AP Top 25. This was the first time since 2019 that the Crimson Tide had lost two regular-season games. For the first time since 2010, Alabama came into the Iron Bowl, having already suffered two losses.
The Tide were unable to partake in the SEC Championship Game as a direct consequence of their losses, which led to them being rated No. 5 in the final CFP Rankings. As a result of this ranking, the Tide won the SEC Championship Game.
Naturally, Alabama may be biased in this aspect, and Saban has already made public arguments in support of his team being allowed to compete. Since 2008, when Nick Saban took over as head coach of the Crimson Tide and began his tenure in Tuscaloosa, the squad has only been the underdog six times.
Ironically, Alabama was victorious in five of those six games, including a 41–24 victory against Georgia in the SEC Championship Game in 2021. Georgia went on to win the national championship after being defeated by Alabama. Nevertheless, Alabama has failed to win during that period when favoured in 20 games.
According to Saban, if you want a level playing field, you need a more advanced process than merely looking at who has lost two games on the last play of the game to determine who has the best team.
According to Caesars Sportsbook, Alabama was a favourite in every game they played during the 2022 season, yet they only managed a record of 3-5-1 against teams from the Power Five conferences. Notable is the fact that Alabama’s Crimson Tide lost to LSU in Baton Rouge for the first time since 2010 despite being favoured by 13 points going into the game.
In addition, the record argument has had a different level of influence on every program. UCF failed not to get into the College Football Playoff even though they went the whole 2017 season without suffering a single loss.
This was due to concerns over the calibre of the opponents they faced. After only one defeat, a handful of Big Ten and Big 12 teams have also been knocked out of contention. In 2020, Texas A&M was the only SEC school with a single loss to finish outside the playoffs for the College Football Playoffs.