Alabama AD Greg Byrne's ire should be with the Crimson Tide, not with the Playoff Selection Committee

After the College Football Playoff field was announced last night, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne did the most predictable thing possible.

He took to social media to complain about the Crimson Tide being left out of the field.

"With this outcome, we will need to asses how many P4 non-conference games make sense in the future to put us in the best position to participate in the CFP," Byrne said, "That is not good for college football."

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Prior to the field being announced, Byrne was petitioning for the Tide to make the field based on their strength of schedule, as well.

"Strength of schedule matters," he said, "Not all schedules and conferences are created equal. Six of our eight wins are against bowl eligible teams and have come against some of the top teams in the sec, including sec champion Georgia."

The implication here is clear: Byrne is annoyed that Alabama's conference schedule didn't outweigh the fact that the Crimson Tide lost three games, and implies that they'll just need to schedule easier non-conference games to make sure they get in.

But if Byrne wants to be angry with someone, he should be angry at his own team. The schedule wasn't the issue; Alabama's performance in that schedule was. It's true that the Tide beat three top 25 teams, in Georgia, South Carolina, and Missouri.

But, what is equally true is that the Tide had two absolutely ghastly losses this season, to a 6-6 Vanderbilt team who they hadn't lost to since 1984, and to an Oklahoma team whose offense was incapable of throwing the football, and who went 2-6 in their first SEC season. And the Tide didn't just lose to the Sooners, they got absolutely obliterated by them.

Compare that to the team who knocked the Crimson Tide out of the field: SMU lost two games this season, but those two losses came by a combined six points to teams ranked in the top 25. Sure, the Mustangs didn't play as tough a conference schedule as Alabama, but the tough games weren't the part that the Tide seemed to struggle with. It was beating the teams they were supposed to beat that gave them trouble.

On top of that, let's not act like Alabama had some sort of gauntlet of a non-conference slate they were playing this season; as the community notes on Byrne's post are quick to point out, the Crimson Tide beat up on Western Kentucky, USF, and Mercer, along with a Wisconsin team that could generously be described as "going through some things right now." I don't really know how you can get an easier non-conference slate than that. And trying to make the non-conference games easier would just throw your conference losses into sharper contrast; it leaves no cushion, no margin for error in the rest of your schedule.

Ultimately, and understandably, Byrne is barking up the wrong tree here, and I suspect he knows it. He has to know that at the end of the day, the Tide just weren't good enough this season, regardless of the schedule that they played.

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