Everything he needed for 3 losses in Alabama happened

Just a week ago, everyone rightly looked at Alabama Crimson Tide was smoked, 24-3, on the road against average Oklahoma and thought Kalen DeBoer’s team was cooked. The odds of making the SEC Championship Game went up in smoke, and presumably so did the odds of the Tide making College Football Playoff.

What a difference a few days could make.

While there’s been plenty of talk about whether a three-loss Alabama team still deserves to be in the 12-team CFP bracket, the coolest told you the Crimson Tide will need a lot of help in the final week of the regular season to find their way into the Playoff field.

But lo and behold, while Alabama picked up an emphatic Iron Bowl win, it appears they also got the help they needed. Now, the possibility of a three-loss team being alive for a shot at the national championship is not only mathematically possible, but likely likely.

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while Ryan Day and Ohio State’s continued ineptitude when playing Michigan doesn’t help Alabama’s cause much, a bunch of other results have gone perfectly their way. Bama winning the Iron Bowl is obviously part of that equation, but they should also send some Christmas cards to Syracuse’s Fran Brown and South Carolina’s Shane Beamer.

At the same time the Buckeyes were upset with their rivals, the same was true for the Clemson Tigers at home against the rival. South Carolina. The Gamecocks came roaring back in the final minutes to take a late lead, and then Dabo Swinney’s team pulled out a 17-14 victory. This eliminates Clemson’s chances of an at-large berth in the College Football Playoff and, as a team previously ranked ahead of Alabama, pushes the Tide higher.

Beyond that, the mid-afternoon window saw Mario Cristobal’s Miami Hurricanes go on the road against Syracuse and get caught in a shootout. u he settled for a field goal down 42-35 to make it a four-point game. That proved to be wrong, as Miami’s defense was unable to get the Orange off the field, milking the clock and pulling off another upset on Saturday.

It’s even bigger for Alabama. If Miami had won and punched their way to the ACC Championship Game, there would have been a world of vindication in keeping an ACC champion SMU team and a two-loss Miami team in the CFP field over the Crimson Tide. Instead, Miami is completely out of the playoff picture with the loss, opening up another path for Bama, especially since an SMU loss to Clemson likely means only one ACC team gets in.

The only complicating factor right now for Alabama is South Carolina after it beat Clemson. With this win, even though the Gamecocks have a head-to-head loss to the Tide, South Carolina could move ahead of DeBoer’s team with a better resume.

No loss for the Gamecocks (LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama) is as bad as Bama’s two worst at Vanderbilt and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, SC also has ranked (currently ranked teams) wins over Missouri, Texas A&M and now Clemson. The Tide’s ranked wins are limited to only Georgia.

We’ll have to see how the Selection Committee weighs in when the final rankings are tallied and as the dust continues to settle on rivalry week and conference championship week. Still, everything is shaping up exactly as any Alabama fan would have hoped.