Navy accomplished something mighty Alabama couldn’t on Friday: beat mediocre Oklahoma.
The Midshipmen downed the Sooners, 21-20, in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, busting the Crimson Tide’s case as a College Football Playoff snub.
After all, any team that lost to the Sooners in the regular season — like Alabama — had no business sniffing the CFP.
If college football’s highest-paid and most prominent talking heads were to be believed, Alabama was unjustly snubbed for a CFP berth over Indiana (11-2) and SMU (11-3).
Following the 12-team reveal on Dec. 8, ESPN college football analyst and former Alabama head coach Nick Saban argued the committee didn’t weigh Alabama’s strength of schedule advantage over SMU heavily enough.
“If we don’t take strength of schedule into consideration, is there any benefit to scheduling really good teams in the future?” Saban asked, as though Alabama deserved a medal for scheduling South Florida (7-6, sixth in American), Wisconsin (5-7, 12th in Big Ten), Western Kentucky (8-6, second in Conference USA) and FCS Mercer (11-3, first in Southern).
While not specifically naming Alabama, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit criticized the committee for having the audacity to factor wins and losses into deciding the 12-team field.
“I hope next year the committee won’t get caught up with what social media and a lot of the ‘fringe’ fans get caught up with which is wins,” Herbstreit said on “SportsCenter.”