Bill Connelly: Terrible luck is the primary reason why Bama is not in the CFB Playoff

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Alabama enjoyed a 45% success rate to Auburn's 35% and outgained the Tigers by 161 yards (1.2 per play). Jones bested Auburn's Bo Nix play for play, and Najee Harris rushed 27 times for 146 yards. But Auburn scored touchdowns on a pair of pick-sixes -- one plucked off of Harris' back in the Auburn end zone and returned 100 yards -- and benefited from unlikely field goal events: Alabama's Joseph Bulovas' miss of a game-tying 30-yarder with two minutes left (granted, a key missed field goal is not the least likely occurrence of the Saban era) and Auburn's Anders Carlson's four bombs of 43-plus yards. Carlson was 4-for-10 on field goals longer than 40 yards heading into the Iron Bowl but went 4-for-4 when it counted.

This will be the first CFP, then, that doesn't feature a team from Tuscaloosa. And because there is always a run of "Dynasty over?" think pieces and radio segments in the days following a Bama loss, it probably goes without saying that we'll be starting that cycle anew this week. It's pretty incredible, though, to step back and realize what it took to keep the Tide out.

• A run of injuries in fall camp and early in the season rendered what was supposed to be an experienced and dominant front seven more reliant on freshmen than ever under Saban.

• After serving as one of the last elite programs to rely on Big Burly Manball as its major offensive philosophy, Ed Orgeron's LSU team finally put together the right pieces for full-on modernization this season and ignited.

• That LSU offense surged to second in offensive SP+ and put up 46 points and 559 yards on Alabama in Tuscaloosa. All of it was needed (Bama scored 41), and much of the output came in the form of running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire running through front-seven arm tackles.

• Late in the first half of the LSU game, Bama suffered probably the worst two-minute span of Saban's tenure, giving up two Edwards-Helaire touchdowns in 20 seconds to turn a six-point deficit into a 20-pointer. The Tide made up 15 of those points but couldn't get over the hump.

• On what was supposed to be his final drive of the game against Mississippi State a week later, Tagovailoa, already slowed by an ankle injury that had him limping through the LSU game, suffered a freak hip injury and was lost for the season.

• See all the glorious Iron Bowl ridiculousness above.

Perhaps Saban was lucky from an injuries and/or "getting the breaks when you need them most" standpoint through the years, and this season was the comeuppance. But it took a huge run of key injuries, a perfectly timed surge from a rival and some good old-fashioned Iron Bowl nonsense to officially knock the Tide out of a potential spot in the final four. And they're still going to end up with a cushy bowl spot and, most likely, a top-10 finish. Dynasty over? Not so fast, my friend.

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