CFB expert projects Alabama as No. 2 seed in first 12-team CFP

Action Network’s Brett McMurphy releases preseason bowl and Playoff projections.

It’s a very exciting year for college football as we enter our first season with the expanded playoffs. Aside from growing from four to 12 teams, the Playoff field will now also include first-round byes, home games and automatic qualifiers for the Power 4 conference champions as well as the top-ranked team from the Group of 5.

The Playoff will still include many of the bluebloods like the Alabama Crimson Tide and Ohio State Buckeyes every year, but the expansion should create more opportunities for new blood. The only downside to the expanded playoffs is the potential ramifications on the other bowl games, so it will be interesting to see how teams handle that this December.

It may be Kalen DeBoer’s first year in Tuscaloosa, but after guiding the Washington Huskies to the four-team Playoff in 2023, I think it is safe to say that a Playoff berth in the expanded format is still the expectation. After all, Alabama was the SEC Champion and a Playoff contender last year as well.

Brett McMurphy, a CFB insider for the Action Network, projects his first 12-team Playoff as well as non-playoff bowl games. McMurphy projects that the Crimson Tide will win the SEC, earn a first-round bye and No. 2 seed and face the winner of No. 7 Ole Miss vs No. 10 Virginia Tech. Ultimately, he projects the Tide to lose to the Georgia Bulldogs in the Orange Bowl semi-final.

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