Jordan Rodgers calls Alabama's latest College Football Playoff ranking 'absurd'

With its loss last weekend to Oklahoma, Alabama fell from No. 4 to No. 10 in the latest rankings this week for the CFP. Jordan Rodgers could not understand that this week for the Crimson Tide.

Rodgers criticized the committee of the College Football Playoff for their placement of Alabama this week while on ‘The Paul Finebaum Show’ on Friday from Nashville. He called it absurd that ‘Bama was at No. 10, as Rodgers went after the justifications made by the eye test, rather than the resumés, in his opinion, by those officials now led by Hunter Yurachek.

“It’s absurd. It’s absurd where they put Alabama,” Rodgers said. “Like, on one hand, look, a great comparison – why is Alabama ahead of a one-loss BYU team? Strength of schedule, right – obvious. Alabama has played a lot tougher of a schedule. They have four ranked wins – blah, blah, blah, say whatever you want. Then why is Notre Dame ahead of Alabama? Their strength of schedule is 29th. Alabama’s is fourth. What are we doing? And what I hate is that they got on TV, Hunter Yurachek, and he said that, look, you know, we just didn’t like, one, how Alabama really wasn’t able to run the football against Florida State – oh, we’re still talking about that? We forgot that Notre Dame lost their first two games? Okay, I get it. They were good opponents.

“And then he said, well, they also couldn’t run the ball against Oklahoma. They’re not trying to run the football! So, what about all of those ranked wins? They didn’t run the ball well in those games, because they didn’t need to. And, oh, by the way, also, Hunter? You’re the AD at Arkansas. Arkansas is one of the best rushing teams in the SEC, and in the country. You’re 2-8. We should not be talking about styles of games right now when you have a plethora of evidence that is black and white, on a piece of paper, that tells you they’ve played better teams, they have better wins. Let’s stop looking at the losses. Let’s stop saying, oh, their run game needs to be better, their blocking better. Turn the football off for a couple days. It’ll sort itself out. We’ve got two more weeks. And then, when we have a complete body of work, then we can start to dive into the eye test a little bit more. We’re always way too early for the eye test.”

Roman Harper, an alumnus of the Tide, agreed with Rodgers, as he feels the narrative is ever-changing with the selection committee. Rodgers felt that way too, and it bothered him even more as, if they’re doing it based on eye test, he didn’t feel the committee was qualified to be making those kinds of justifications, team by team.

“You know how we feel about committees around here. We don’t like them. And, the fact is like, when you – you can’t tell us what the criteria is and the things that we’ll be grading you upon, and then, when we get on TV, we talk about everything else, or you change it,” Harper said. “The goalpost just continues to move, and I think that’s what frustrates everybody, especially us that actually watch all these teams and players. And, we just want it to be fair so we can get up and talk about this is why this team is ahead of this one. The narrative will continue to shift, and they want to try to fit it into whatever they want to say to justify whatever teams.”

Rodgers also felt this was particularly problematic for the case of Alabama. The Tide’s basis for being as high as they once were was the strength of their schedule and record, which has taken a hit over the last few weeks with their own second loss and teams that they’ve beaten having lost as well. And, if they can’t bank on that, and the committee goes more for the eye test, the Crimson Tide could now find themselves on the wrong side of an argument on the bubble for the CFP.

“What that has done is, Alabama not just would love if Oregon lost, but, even more importantly, because strength of schedule has been a little bit diminished and eye test has been a little more? What happens if Tennessee and Missouri aren’t ranked at the end of the year? Those are two of Alabama’s ranked wins. Now their strength of schedule looks even worse, and, already, the committee is telling us the eye test is better for some of these other teams,” Rodgers explained. “Like, that could be a problem.”

Rodgers and Harper were very passionate about the topic this afternoon. As sure as those down in Tuscaloosa are right now still, with the Tide sitting just inside the CFP at No. 10.

“How long do we got?” Rodgers emphatically said. “Do we got an hour and a half to keep going on this?”