Alabama at No. 5 is the worst call in the first CFP rankings

Why Alabama at No. 5 is the worst call in the CFP rankings

The College Football Playoff committee looked at two 6-2 SEC teams on Tuesday night and put the one that lost by 16 eight spots ahead of the one that won. Alabama is No. 5. Tennessee is No. 13. Tennessee beat Alabama 26-10 in Knoxville on Oct. 17. That is the worst call in the first CFP rankings, and it is not close.

The AP poll has Alabama at No. 9. The committee looked at the same team and moved it up four spots, ahead of 7-1 Kentucky and ahead of 8-0 UCLA. Alabama is 2-2 against the committee's own top 25. It lost at home to Georgia 20-17, and it lost by 16 to a team the committee says is eight spots worse.

What the committee said about Alabama and Tennessee

Committee chair Hunter Yurachek said head to head only applies when two teams sit in the same group, or pod, on the board. Read that again. The committee slotted the teams far enough apart that the result no longer counts, then used the gap as the reason the result does not count. A game on the field should be the first thing that settles a tie between two 6-2 teams, not the last.

Yurachek pointed to Alabama's resume instead, and the wins over Kentucky, South Carolina and Mississippi State. Those are real wins. They also all came before Oct. 10. The Alabama that the committee just ranked fifth is not the team that won those games.

Is Alabama really a top five team right now?

Look at the scoring. Alabama put up 248 points in its first five games. It has 58 in the last three, with 17 against Georgia, 10 against Tennessee and 31 against Texas A&M. Before Alabama's last drive in Knoxville, the Tide had 141 total yards, according to a Yahoo Sports account of the game.

The defense has a hole too. Opponents score on 96.3% of their red zone trips against Alabama, which ranks 134th in FBS. Alabama sits 75th in rushing at 151.9 yards a game. Top five teams do not carry those numbers into November.

The case for Alabama

Here is the fair side. Alabama's two losses came against No. 2 Georgia and No. 13 Tennessee, with nothing outside the top 15. The win at No. 6 Kentucky was 45-17, and the win over No. 21 South Carolina was 49-18. Tennessee lost to that same South Carolina team. Keelon Russell has 15 touchdowns and 5 interceptions, and Alabama is +7 in turnover margin, 11th in FBS, while LSU is -2. LSU is also 0-2 against the committee's top 25, with road losses to Ole Miss and Kentucky. If you rank pure resume, you can build the argument for Alabama over LSU today.

Why LSU beats Alabama on Saturday

Alabama has won three straight over LSU, and that streak ends Saturday at Tiger Stadium, 3:30pm ET on ABC. LSU scores 40.1 points a game, seventh in FBS, and allows 16, 16th in FBS. It gains 510 yards a game, sixth in the country, and gives up 258.3, fifth. Sam Leavitt has 17 touchdown passes and is completing 70.3% of his throws.

The market already agrees. LSU opened at -4.5 and DraftKings has it at -5.5, with a -225 moneyline. The No. 14 team is a clear favorite over the No. 5 team. That tells you what people with money think of the committee's board. The Tigers win, and the next set of rankings has to answer for this one.