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Bama Survives at Auburn…Partially

Alabama rallied in the fourth quarter to force overtime at Auburn, eventually winning the rivalry game and improving to 11-1 on the year. They survived the scare and now advance to the SEC Championship where a win over No. 1 Georgia would send them to the College Football Playoff.

Here’s the thing, though.

Saturday’s SEC Championship will officially be an elimination game for Alabama if the CFP committee has self-respect. Any previous talk of a two-loss Alabama team being worthy of a CFP appearance can be over now. If you’re going to be the first two-loss team to get in you’ve got to be a lot more dominating in all of your wins than Alabama was too often this season.

I don’t disagree with Nick Saban that winning is hard. It’s really hard. I don’t question that and deny it whatsoever.

But when average teams regularly push you to the brink any talk of being a “different” kind of two-loss team needs to be fired into the sun.

Alabama beat a 6-6 Florida team by two.

Alabama beat a five-loss LSU team by just one score.

Alabama needed triple overtime and an epic collapse by Auburn to get by the 6-6 Tigers.

If Alabama wins next Saturday against Georgia they deserve a CFP appearance.

But after this showing and stacking it on top of the other showings stated above and you can end any talk of a two-loss Alabama team being playoff worthy.

And that is really good news if you’re a Notre Dame or fan of a Big 12 team.

Related:

College Football Playoff – Top 25 Scoreboard