Alabama's stay at No. 1 was fleeting, but if the College Football Playoff selection committee were meeting today, the Tide's fall might not be as far as you would expect after their stunning loss to Vanderbilt, which was a 22.5-point underdog.
The reality is this would be quite the conundrum in the committee meeting room and require a significant conversation: How much does the win against a top-five Georgia team outweigh a bad loss to unranked, two-loss Vanderbilt? Alabama is now a complex character, with the best win in the country and one of the worst losses. (The Tide can thank Notre Dame for earning the dubious distinction of the worst, at home to Northern Illinois.)
But now Alabama has joined the Irish in the one-loss club -- which is growing larger each Saturday. The 12-team CFP is certainly more forgiving, but the teams that began October with a loss are still under pressure to earn statement wins for the rest of the season. If they don't win their conference championship game, these losses will be a part of the debate as the committee determines the seven at-large teams.
Here's a look at how the top one-loss playoff contenders stack up heading into the midpoint of the season, followed by the weekly prediction of what the committee's top 12 might look like if its rankings were released today.
Remember, this is NOT a projection of what the rankings will look like on Selection Day. Rather, it's a snapshot of who's in the driver's seat now, based on what they have done to this point. The 12-team playoff seeding will look different from this ranking as well. The top four highest-ranked conference champions receive byes, and the top five conference champions receive entry into the field.
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Ranking the one-loss contenders
Projecting the Top 12
