NCAA Football Alabama Crimson Tide

Alabama Football Playoff Scenarios: Week 13 Edition

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By @BZarp





Fans of the Alabama Crimson Tide can take a page out of the Aaron Rodgers playbook and relax. Alabama has been in control of its own destiny all along regarding its spot in the College Football Playoff, despite being on the outside looking in during the initial weeks of the playoff rankings being released. Following Alabama’s win over top-ranked Mississippi State, the Crimson Tide will be firmly within the top four.

Of course, it’s not a done deal yet; Alabama still has to win out the rest of the season. The Tide has a virtual bye this week against Western Carolina, which should give them a chance to rest up and prepare for the Iron Bowl the following week. That matchup against the Auburn Tigers will be Alabama’s biggest potential stumbling block between them and a spot in the College Football Playoff.

The Tigers were the team that kept Alabama from reaching the BCS Title Game last season, and the Tide’s in-state rival has a chance to do so again this year.

Assuming Alabama can win its revenge game against Auburn, the Tide would then have to win the SEC Championship Game against either Missouri or Georgia. Georgia would probably be the tougher matchup for Alabama, but neither is a team the Tide shouldn’t be able to handle. Winning all three of those games would guarantee Alabama a spot in the playoffs, possibly with the top seed, assuming that matters.

The issue that Alabama needs to be concerned about is whether it can afford a loss and still manage to find its way into the playoffs. If the Crimson Tide were to lose to Auburn, there would be a chance as it certainly wouldn’t be considered a bad loss for Alabama. However, considering the fact that Alabama had near-losses to LSU and Arkansas, the Tide may not be able to stay ahead of every one-loss team.

Alabama could still be ranked ahead of every other two-loss team, but that would require at least three teams suffering a second from the group of Mississippi State, Baylor, TCU, Oregon, and Ohio State.

Needing that much help in order to sneak into the playoffs as a two-loss team would be asking a lot and an unlikely scenario for Alabama. At the end of the day, the Crimson Tide simply needs to take care of business on the field.

Bryan Zarpentine is a New York Mets writer at www.RantSports.com.  Like him on Facebook, follow him on twitter @BZarp and add him on Google.

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