Can only play who is in front of you and the schedules are set years in advance. That and there is clear and obvious SEC bias in the rankings which distorts everything anyway.

Alabama had what, Mizzou? How is that better than Navy who finished 9-2 and ahead in the rankings. LSU wasn't ranked at all. TN not ranked at all and somehow were ranked still near the end even with a terrible schedule. Nearly lost to many of those too- Auburn, LSU, South Carolina...

ND- stronger strength of record- https://www.espn.com/college-football/fpi

I give them Vandy and GA of course.

But in any case the point remains- what did they do in the final weeks to justify jumping ahead of ND? ND was ranked higher and demolished Stanford so much that they had starters resting in the 2nd half (like most of their last games) and Alabama needed every bit of luck to squeak by Auburn with an interim head coach but...that was a "great win" that "totally justified jumping the Irish"?

That's baloney, pure and simple.

I guess I just disagree wholeheartedly. We did ourselves no favors so I'd be fine with a more deserving team but Alabama is simply not that and is coasting on name alone.

At this point let computers do the playoffs because the "eye test" clearly favored the Irish going into the final rankings if they had at all watched Alabama play.

Edit- a snippet from reddit from someone with a GA flair. I think it says it well though the "infantile" is not what I see- FSU should've opted out a few years ago as well from a clear BS process.

If I had the final say in it all, I’d leave the playoff exactly the way it is, except swap Alabama for ND

The end and long of it is Bama lost 3 games and ND lost 2. Notre Dame’s 2 losses came by a combined 4 points, and both to teams who made the playoffs. 2 of Alabama’s 3 losses were to a 5-7 team, and a blowout to close out the year. Alabama also struggled and had to find ways to beat Mizzou, South Carolina, and Auburn, 2 of which aren’t going bowling either. You can make fun of ND’s schedule all you want, but they absolutely took care of business against inferior competition.

Do I feel a little sorry for ND for getting hosed by the playoff committee, when they clearly deserved the spot over Alabama? A little. What we’re all making fun of them for is their near infantile reaction to it all.