Why Alabama football 2024 CFP resume conversation resumed at 2025 SEC spring meetings
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Alabama football did not make the 2024 College Football Playoff. After road losses to Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma, the Crimson Tide finished its season in the ReliaQuest Bowl, outside of the realm of possibility for a national championship.
But as SEC spring meetings kicked off May 26, as SEC commissioner Greg Sankey fielded questions about myriad topics including SEC football scheduling and CFP expansion, the questions of comparison continued like what separates a nine-win team facing ample competition compared to an 11-win team with a questionable strength of schedule in the eyes of the CFP committee.
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And with those competition questions, a specific one, one Alabama football knows well: Was Sankey surprised that the Crimson Tide did not make the 2024 CFP?
"I don't know if I would say surprised," Sankey said. He instead called it "reality."
It's a situation Sankey said one spoke of at SEC Media Days last July, using Georgia — with road games against Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss ahead in 2024 — as an example.
"How do you evaluate that against other teams that don't come anywhere close to that?" Sankey asked. "As I said, we learned something the first time through, and that raises the need for deeper analysis and understanding. If we're just going to just incentivize wins, playing fewer-win teams would get you to more wins. I don't think that's great for football."
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Alabama finished as the No. 11 overall seed in the final 2024 CFP rankings, finishing outside of the playoff bracket with SMU taking the final at-large bid.
Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama football 2024 CFP conversation resumed at 2025 SEC spring meetings
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