After falling to the Vanderbilt Commodores in a stunning 40-35 upset in Week 6 and barely hanging on against the South Carolina Gamecocks in a sloppy 27-25 victory last Saturday, the Alabama Crimson Tide are no longer projected to make the College Football Playoff in the latest postseason projections from USA TODAY Sports.
Instead, it’s the LSU Tigers that have moved past Alabama in analyst Erick Smith’s updated playoff and bowl game forecast, released Tuesday. LSU came from behind to beat the Ole Miss Rebels in a thrilling 29-26 overtime victory in Tiger Stadium last Saturday.
The Tide and Tigers will meet Nov. 9 in Baton Rouge in what could be a de facto playoff elimination game — if Alabama can take care of business against both the Tennessee Vols in the annual Third Saturday in October clash, and a week later against Missouri.
Per Smith’s updated projections:
“Alabama won Saturday. But the Crimson Tide are losers this week after being knocked out of the projected College Football Playoff field following their close defeat of South Carolina. Kalen DeBoer’s team now faces the challenge of going to Tennessee in Week 8 and still has trips to LSU and Oklahoma along with a home date against Missouri. Getting through that and the Iron Bowl with just one loss seems optimistic given the performances the past two weeks. The turnaround needs to start in Knoxville.”
Other College Football Playoff projections this week were more optimistic about the Crimson Tide’s chances.
CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm still sees Alabama making the 12-team playoff. Palm projects the Tide to face Texas A&M in a first-round game in College Station. The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel also included Alabama in his playoff predictions ($), as did 247Sports’ Brad Crawford.
Alabama (5-1 overall, 2-1 SEC) is ranked No. 7 in both the US LBM Coaches Poll and AP Top 25 poll this week.
The Tide will face No. 10 Tennessee (5-1, 2-1) Saturday in Neyland Stadium at 2:30 p.m. The game will be televised on ABC.
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