Paul Finebaum defends Alabama being ranked ahead of TCU

Alabama finds itself as the top one-loss team in the country, debuting at No. 6 in the College Football Playoff rankings. An undefeated team sits right behind them, with many thinking the TCU Horned Frogs deserved to be in a top-six spot. ESPN’s Paul Finebaum is not one of those people, instead, defending Nick Saban‘s squad.

Finebaum called TCU “a fabulous story” after moving on from Gary Patterson and seeing success in the first year of Sonny Dykes. But his argument was if the Big 12 program was placed into the SEC, they would already have a loss or two on the schedule.

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“I know it’s been popular to cry about TCU,” Finebaum said during ESPN’s First Take on Wednesday. “They’ve been a fabulous story. First-year coach, they fired a legend but it’s just not comparable. The Big 12 is good, it’s entertaining football. But, come on. You bring TCU over to the SEC and send them to Tennessee, send them to Georgia, and send them down to LSU and Arkansas and all these other schools — they’re going to have a loss. Ultimately, I think they’re going to have a loss anyway.”

TCU has four games remaining on the schedule, with two coming at home. On paper, they have already been through the toughest portion of the year and came out undefeated. If there is one game that Dykes will have circled on paper, it’s on the road to No. 24 Texas on Nov. 12.

Paul Finebaum says four-team playoff brings these arguments

Alabama being ranked one spot ahead of TCU matters in the current system thanks to only four teams getting into the playoff. At the end of the day, Finebaum believes everything “takes care of itself” for this season but once the 12-team playoff is implemented, this type of argument will not be occurring.

“This is the part of college people that drives people crazy. We get all upset about this stuff and it takes care of itself. But that’s the way it is. Until we get the 12-team playoff, we’re going to be stuck in this mode every November.”

Things will take care of themselves, indeed. TCU has an opportunity to end the season undefeated with a conference championship under its belt. In the CFP era, that’s been an automatic inclusion into the final four.

Alabama will have the chance to prove themselves as well, beginning with LSU on Saturday. There is still a lot of football remaining for both programs.