ESPN's Heather Dinich reveals Alabama's path to make College Football Playoff

With their third loss, Alabama is currently all but already out of the College Football Playoff. However, Heather Dinich says that the field can still work in the favor of the Crimson Tide come time for the at-large selections.

Dinich explained ‘Bama’s best chances to still be in the CFP while on ‘Get Up’ on Tuesday. She said there’s certainly still a way for them to get in if there were to be an upset elsewhere across the country this weekend or depending on what happens during the conference championships. It was the same thing that Alabama themselves did for other hopefuls this past weekend with loss number three for them at Oklahoma.

“Absolutely, Greeny,” said Dinich. “All it takes is one upset like Notre Dame losing to USC. If that were to happen, according to the Allstate Playoff Predictor, Alabama’s chances would be 50.1% to get into the College Football Playoff.

“I mean, look. I had Indiana out of the bracket and then Ole Miss and Alabama lost and now they’re back in. So, who knows. What’s the next upset?”

Per that Allstate Playoff Predictor, Alabama presently has just a 37% chance to make it into the playoff. That’s still ahead of several other teams but is a major drop off from the group ahead of them with SMU being the next closest at 63%. Winning the Iron Bowl on Saturday also only improves their odds of being an at-large to 41%.

Still, as Dinich noted, there’s still a weekend’s worth of games to be played in college football. Notre Dame, Miami, Georgia, Tennessee, and SMU among others have games to play, including some of which could be possible upsets. A loss or two there could be all it takes to start the conversation again about the Crimson Tide.

To be clear, though, Alabama is in a bad spot, beyond no longer controlling its own destiny, with what happened in Norman. Paul Finebaum explained that alongside Dinich this morning on ESPN, specifically in reference to a caller that he had on his show yesterday.

“He speaks for a lot of them. I talked to fans all day yesterday, have heard from them since late Saturday night and he is not an outlier,” Finebaum said. “I know it’s easy to say this is a crazy fan who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He does know what he’s talking about, whether you like it or not. That’s the pulse of the Alabama fanbase today.”

Even so, at 9-3 overall, Alabama can still be in the CFP. The Tide will just need some help in order to roll into the bracket at this point because of their record.