Joel Klatt: Alabama could miss College Football Playoff field

It’s hard to fathom — and would’ve been even harder to consider just a week ago — but Alabama could be in danger of missing the College Football Playoff. And FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt thinks that just might happen.

With Alabama showing real vulnerabilities, particularly on defense, in a loss to Vanderbilt that recalibrated possibilities, Klatt isn’t ruling out one or even two more losses. A 9-3 Alabama, even with a win over then-No. 1 Georgia, isn’t going to the CFP, Klatt said.

“But, if I were to tell you that they were going to miss the playoff, you start to look at that schedule and you start to think, ‘OK, with one loss already in the bag, they would have to through that gauntlet only losing one game,'” Klatt said. “Because I think three losses would put them on the outside looking in, even with that win against Georgia. There’s too many teams, then, that would be getting huge wins. Whichever team beat them, whether it’s LSU or Tennessee, they would be in there. And then you’ve got whatever’s going on with the Big Ten, Ohio State and Penn State might be playing the game of the century on Nov. 2 with a one versus two.

“So it gets really sketchy for Alabama if they lose two more games and with that schedule and with that defense, that is entirely within the realm of possibility,” Klatt said. “So it might sound wild but that is absolutely something that could happen to Alabama. Which, you said that a week ago, people would’ve been like ‘What are you talking about? That is crazy talk.’ But, here it is.” 

The Crimson Tide have seven games left on the slate:

• vs. South Carolina
• at Tennessee
• vs. Missouri
• at LSU
• vs. Mercer
• at Oklahoma
• vs. Auburn

With the current state of the Alabama defense — it’s surrendered 67 points in the last six quarters of play — Klatt thinks a handful of losses are quite possible in that span.

“The weakness is the defense,” Klatt said. “This is a 2018 Big 12 team that’s going to have to win shootouts. And guess what, when you’re at Tennessee, when you’re at LSU and when you’re playing the Iron Bowl against Auburn, you’re going to see offenses that could be competent. Just throwing that out there. Those two environments, Tennessee and LSU, on the road, are going to be incredibly difficult. At one point, you’ve gotta assume Alabama doesn’t have their best stuff offensively. Can they win a defensive game? Nope. Not right now, at least.”

So while it’s a thought that might sound out of left field, as Klatt laid out the case, the path is certainly there for Alabama to stumble some more and not be one of the 12 teams making the college football playoff, surprising as that might be.

“What if I told you before the year that Alabama was going to beat Georgia and then miss the playoff?” Klatt said. “You’d be like ‘Absolutely not. There’s no way.’ And lo and behold, here we are. A week after they lose to Vanderbilt and then you look at the rest of that schedule and you look at some of the other schedules around the country, and it’s like, ‘Hold on a second, if Alabama doesn’t clean up this defense, they could absolutely get beat two more times.'”