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By Matt Audilet
Contributing Sports Writer
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The Alabama Crimson Tide landed a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff on Sunday, making them the only three-loss team in this year's field.
Kalen DeBoer's team suffered losses to Florida State and Oklahoma in the 2025 regular season. And this past Saturday, the Crimson Tide were blown out by the Georgia Bulldogs with a 28-7 final score in the SEC Championship game.
The College Football Playoff selection committee elected to not punish Alabama for its lopsided conference championship loss, giving them No. 9 position in Sunday's final rankings.
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Notre Dame was the first team left out of the 12-team playoff field. After beginning the 2025 season with back-to-back losses against Miami and Texas A&M, the Fighting Irish closed out the year with 10 consecutive victories.
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ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky believes Notre Dame should've earned a playoff berth over Alabama. The former NFL quarterback also says the Crimson Tide have no chance to win a national championship title this year.
“I’m 100% on board having Miami in because of that head to head point, but Notre Dame should have been in over Alabama,” Orlovsky said on "Get Up", via On3 Sports. “I understand the three losses, SEC title game, don’t penalize, let’s get rid of title games for conferences if they don’t matter.
"And we’re not going to penalize teams. Alabama hasn’t played good football in a month. When I was on a Friday show, I said, ‘Man, if Alabama gets boat raced, I would leave them out.' They got boat raced. I mean, they were down 21 it’s the third quarter with like, three minutes to go. It’s fourth and one of their own 40. They punted."
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“Why do you think they punted America? So they don’t get smoked by more," Orlovsky continued. "They didn’t look good in that game. They didn’t look good against Auburn. They didn’t look good against OU, shoot, they didn’t look good against LSU like five weeks ago, I think Notre Dame, unequivocally, is a team that people can sit there and say, yes, they can win a national title. The way Alabama has played, they are not a team right now, at least in the last four or five weeks, they’re not a team that can win a national championship.”
Alabama will begin its College Football Playoff campaign with a road-game matchup against the No. 8 Oklahoma Sooners on Dec. 19.
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