Brandon Walker rips Alabama at No. 5 in CFP rankings

The first board of the year dropped Tuesday night, and the Alabama spot is the only thing anyone wanted to talk about. BFW went first.

Brandon Walker

@BFW

Alabama at 5 is one of the most stunning things I’ve ever seen. Forget about SEC bias. There’s like three SEC teams alone that should be ahead of them. In no way should they be above Ole Miss or Texas.

He's got a point on the SEC math. Alabama sits at 5 with losses to Georgia and Tennessee. Right below them are 7-1 Kentucky at 6 and 6-2 Texas at 7, with Ole Miss at 10. Undefeated UCLA is 8th. Walker isn't crying SEC bias, because the teams Alabama jumped are SEC teams too. His complaint is that the Tide got the crown over teams in their own league with the same record or a better one.

Committee chair Hunter Yurachek explained it with the wins. He said Alabama 'went on the road and beat the team that we have ranked sixth this week in Kentucky,' and that they beat Mississippi State 'when Mississippi State was undefeated and at full strength,' meaning before QB Kamario Taylor went down. South Carolina was the third win on the list. Tennessee has the head-to-head win over Alabama, but Yurachek said the Vols don't have 'the same level of quality wins' and got evaluated in a different pod. That's how a team that lost to Tennessee ends up ranked ahead of them. PFT Commenter took the Mississippi State part and ran with it.

PFT Commenter

@PFTCommenter

@BFW Massive W for Mississippi state for being such an impresssive win that for Alabama. Committee finally putting some respect on you

That's the joke. Mississippi State's best moment of the season, apparently, was losing to Alabama at full strength. Everybody else was less polite about it. The clip below has the actual reveal: Alabama at 5, then Kentucky, Texas, UCLA, BYU and Ole Miss all lined up underneath.

Frank Fleming

@NjTank99

This is corrupt as fuck

ESPN College Football

@ESPNCFB

The crew's reaction to the CFP committee ranking 6-2 Alabama at No. 5 👀

To be fair, the Kentucky win is real. Alabama went into Lexington and beat a team the committee now has at 6, and the pod system rewards exactly that. Still, the brand-name look is hard to miss: a 2-loss team whose best argument is a road win, and partly a win over a Mississippi State team that isn't the same team anymore, gets ranked over an unbeaten UCLA and over the SEC teams fighting it for the same bids. Walker also gave the most useful reminder of the night.

Brandon Walker

@BFW

And that will be my last comment about tonight’s rankings because in a month, the first CFP ranking will be the most useless list ever created.

He's right that none of this is locked in. Texas, Ole Miss, LSU and Alabama still play each other, and a lot of these 2-loss teams are going to pick up a 3rd. The committee will have to redo this whole order in a month. Tuesday's version told us one thing, though: when it's close, Alabama's name still counts as a quality win.