"Take a bow" - Paul Finebaum salty after first-round CFP games disappoint big time with Alabama, Ole Miss not in vicinity
Many fans debated over potential snubs of Alabama Crimson Tide and Ole Miss Rebels from this year's playoff field. Paul Finebaum joined the party late following one-sided affairs in the first-round games thus far.
Starting this year, the College Football Playoff Committee introduced the new 12-team playoff field. The committee controversially picked the SMU Mustangs and the Indiana Hoosiers over the Rebels and Crimson Tide.
Both the Mustangs and the Hoosiers suffered heavy defeats against the Penn State Nittany Lions (38-10) and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (27-17), respectively, leaving many wondering if the addition of Crimson Tide and Rebels in place, could have brewed a close game.
Taking a sarcastic dig over the CFP committee, Finebaum said:
"So far, the CFP selection committee has given us some blockbusters. Notre Dame led late over Indiana 27-3 and Penn State just went up on the committee’s final team 28-0 at the half. Take a bow".
Alabama (9-3) will play against the Michigan Wolverines in the ReliaQuest Bowl. Meanwhile, the Rebels (9-3) will play against Duke in the Gator Bowl.
Former Alabama coach shares his take on Alabama's snub from CFP
Nick Saban, who spent 17 years coaching in Tuscaloosa, was surprised to learn about Alabama not playing a playoff game this year, highlighting the problem of strength of schedule. Saban said:
"If we don't take strength of schedule into consideration, is there any benefit to scheduling really good teams in the future?. Here at Alabama, we're supposed to play Notre Dame, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Florida State in the future outside the league".
"Those are great games for fans to see, and that's what I think we should be doing in college football is creating more good inventory for great games that people are interested in, but do you enhance people wanting to do that — what's the athletic director going to do? He may go cancel all those games now, knowing the SEC is tough enough."
Since Alabama plays in the Southeastern Conference, Alabama has a much tougher schedule as compared to SMU Mustangs who plays in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
While Alabama secured three wins over ranked programs like Georgia, SMU didn't. However, SMU had a better record overall which may have swayed the committee to pick them over Saban's former team.