Here is our biggest problem for the playoffs

They are closer than I would have thought

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Both Oregon and Utah would have 2 losses on Alabama's schedule minimum.

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I mean, maybe?

The difference this year is that outside of LSU what else is there? Texas A&M I guess? Who else that we've beat are you so sure would beat Utah or Oregon?

In years past that was something that drug down our "averaged" SOS. But this year? Not really.

#1 LSU (10-0) (L)
#18 Texas A&M (7-3) (W)
#40 Tennessee (5-5) (W)
#41 Mississippi St (4-6) (W)
#52 South Carolina (4-7) (W)
#56 Ole Miss (4-7) (W)
#77 Southern Miss (7-3) (W)
#83 Duke (4-6) (W)
#113 Arkansas (2-8) (W)
#164 NMSU (1-9) (W)

Once you get past A&M there are a lot of really bad teams on there. Tennessee? State? Carolina? Ole Miss? A lot of years we had 2-3 Top 25 teams and then 2-3 border Top 25 teams (Top 30ish).

This year we have 1 Top 25 team and basically nobody else.

I’ll ask this one question that, to me, just shows how difficult it is to compare teams that don’t play common opponents, nor have similar type schedules.
Looking at just 2 games: Auburn- Oregon, and Clemson- UNC, Clemson won on the strength of a failed 2 point conversion, where Oregon largely controlled the game but lost in the last minute.
Was Clemson a much better team against UNC than Oregon was against Auburn?

Our schedule ended up trash. It is what it is. Getting Duke for the CFA game was bad and Duke has gone in the shitter even more so than usual.

South Carolina and Tennessee from the East were no help.

The West is shite outside of us, the one team we lost to and the one team we haven't played yet (well A&M isn't that bad, solid team that looks bad because of a brutal schedule).

WE SHOULD NOT BE SCHEDULING WEST CAROLINA AND RARELY A TEAM LIKE NEW MEXICO STATE.

Teams like Duke and Southern Miss should be the bottom two teams on the OOC schedule NOT the top two teams.

We need ZERO FCS games. We should play one perennial top 15 type program OOC every year, at least one (preferably 2) solid P5 teams (a team that isn't necessarily always ranked but almost always has a winning season in P5), and then whatever FBS rent-a-win we can line up.

To Alabama's credit we usually do try and schedule the top 15 type game but we whiffed this year. The problem is we don't usually leave room for error because it is that one good OOC game and then a lot of trash.

Like next year we have:

USC
Ga State
Kent St
UT Martin

USC is fine, but those other 3 are not going to help. If USC ends up not ranked and we are a 1 loss team needing to tout resume we could be in the same spot again. Having GA from the East will help at least.

A&M beating Georgia would be nice. Then we would need to kick hell out of Auburn.

That would get us in.......

I think

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Ok, but we haven't played them yet.

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Sure, but we know it's coming and that it's going to be an extremely important game for those reasons.

It’s always possible for chaos, I think if we look really pedestrian against AU we won’t make it in. Even with a close win. We need to have control of the game and win by 10 or more. That will give them something to chew on. Otherwise we are screwed. Of course TAMU beating UGA or some other crazy stuff puts us square in the playoff whether we like it or not.

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Yea, the only problem is Oregon theoretically will add a win over Utah. And then you get into comparing a game from August to one from late November.

I guess my main takeaway is that we don't clearly stand out, at all, and that is going to be a problem when other teams have conference titles and very similar (if not slightly better) resumes/top wins/etc.

But who knows, we'll all find out soon enough. Maybe we can get some chaos and throw all this stuff out the window.

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Seems like you aren't giving Alabama credit for the Auburn win, which would also be happening.

I think if they compare Oregon to Alabama's schedule then it becomes clear. 2 losses vs 1. Then you look at it from the flip side, undefeated Alabama.

But as I was saying above, if we don't look really good against Auburn and like a team that has a real chance to still win it, then I think it would be best to just miss out on it. Need a statement game.

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Does anyone really believe that Alabama can't find worthy OOC opponents?

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I don't think we have problems finding high end OOC opponents.

I absolutely think we have problems finding solid 2nd tier OOC opponents. I don't think high end G5 teams want anything to do with us (understandably) and I don't think middling P5 teams want anything to do with us.