This story was updated to accurately reflect the most current information.
BATON ROUGE, La. — Alabama football has a significantly better shot at reaching the SEC Championship Game after Saturday's 42-13 drubbing of LSU . The question is: Should it even want that shot?
And the sensible answer is heck no.
Under the old four-team format for the College Football Playoff, conference championship games were mostly a steppingstone toward a playoff berth. Georgia's 2023 team would be a glaring exception − Alabama 's win over the Bulldogs in the SEC title game last year knocked UGA out of the playoff − but far more often than not, conference title games were ticket-punchers in the four-team format. When the CFP expanded to 12 teams, however, all conference championship games became less of a steppingstone to the playoff and more of a trap door.
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This much is clear: If Alabama wins out to finish 10-2 and doesn't reach the SEC title game, its berth in the CFP should be secure. If it wins out at 10-2 and qualifies for the SECCG, its place in the CFP will be at grave risk, because the likelihood that Alabama or any other two-loss team could drop a conference title game for its third loss and still reach the playoff is slim at best.
None of that is to say that SEC championships aren't a worthwhile pursuit. At Alabama, it's the only goal that stands between national titles and disappointment. They're important enough that each one is carved into granite along the Walk of Champions outside Bryant-Denny Stadium. They help recruiting, they lift the profile of any program, and players who win one get fitted for well-deserved rings.
Just not the brass ring.
If the ultimate goal is a national championship, any two-loss team is better off taking the first Saturday in December off and resting up than risking playoff elimination by playing in a conference title game.
The Crimson Tide (7-2, 4-2 SEC) remains in the hunt to play in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Dec. 7 along with Texas , Tennessee , Texas A&M , Georgia, Ole Miss Missouri and LSU . That's eight schools and half the league − it's still quite the muddled picture − but there's a mathematical window for all of them. In the SEC's tiebreaker rules for SECCG qualification, UA has a tiebreaker advantage over three of those, Georgia, LSU and Missouri, by virtue of head-to-head wins, but if Tennessee ends up with two losses, the Volunteers would win a tiebreaker with a two-loss Alabama team because they beat the Crimson Tide in Knoxville.
Got a headache yet? Take an aspirin, because head-to-head competition is just the first of the SEC's six tiebreaker rules. To keep it simple, the SECCG frontrunners are the three teams with one conference loss: Tennessee, Texas and Texas A&M. The Longhorns and Aggies face one another to end the season, so an SECCG matchup of Tennessee and the winner of that game is a real possibility.
Here's where things get messy: if Georgia beats Tennessee next week and Texas A&M knocks off Texas two weeks later − both also real possibilities − every team in the SEC will have at least two losses. In which case both SEC title game participants will be walking a playoff plank.
Something's wrong with this, of course.
Being the third- or fourth-best team in a conference shouldn't offer safer playoff shelter than being the best or second-best, but that's where college football has found itself in 2024. That's what happens when the money made on conference title games and the money made on a 12-team playoff conspire to clash with common sense.
Alabama's two losses make the SEC title game little more than a potential pitfall; the only prize for winning it would be higher playoff seeding, which is a marginal gain against a major risk.
It would be an impressive feat for new Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer to play in Atlanta in his first season.
It just wouldn't be a good way to lose the chance for something bigger.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Would reaching SEC title game be good for Alabama football? Heck no
