The blueprint to reaching college football’s inaugural 12-team playoff out of the Southeastern Conference has been revealed.
Lose two games. Have everybody across the country label your season as a disappointment. Place your back against the proverbial wall, and then come out fighting like there is no tomorrow.
Worked for Alabama and Ole Miss.
The Crimson Tide and the Rebels not only looked the part of playoff participants Saturday but as legitimate national championship contenders, with Alabama shredding LSU 42-13 inside Tiger Stadium and with Ole Miss sending Georgia out of Oxford with a 28-10 humbling. Alabama earned its initial SEC road win under first-year coach Kalen DeBoer after losing at Vanderbilt and at Tennessee, while Lane Kiffin’s Rebels hosted Georgia having dropped three-point decisions at LSU in overtime and at home against a Kentucky program that is now 3-6.
“A lot of people, when their backs are against the wall, fight a little different,” Kiffin said Saturday night during a news conference after finally winning what he called a “signature” game. “Probably knowing that they got rid of that cushion — had we won those two, we might have come into this game like, ‘Hey, we can beat Georgia, but we don’t really have to, because we’ll still be in the playoff.’