Alabama ranked ahead of Miami in CFP category

Alabama football is becoming a regular, upsetting an ACC team in the College Football Playoff field twice in as many seasons.

Last season, the 12-1 Crimson Tide made the four-team field over an undefeated Florida State program. In Tuesday’s penultimate rankings reveal — the final set of rankings before the 12-team bracket is set Sunday — a three-loss Alabama team got the nod against two-loss Miami for the last projected playoff spot.

Alabama was ranked No. 11 in the penultimate rankings, one spot ahead of No. 12 Miami. While both teams would make the playoffs based on rankings alone, two teams ranked behind them in the top 25, No. 15 Arizona State and No. 16 Iowa State, will play for the title of the Big 12 on Saturday, meaning one of them will likely move up to No. 12 in Sunday’s standings, eliminating the Hurricanes.

“Actually, Alabama is 3-1 against current top 25 teams, and Miami is 0-1,” CFP selection committee chairman Warde Manuel said after the reveal. “Alabama is 6-1 against teams above .500, and Miami is 4-2. Both had losses that weren’t what they wanted in those games. But in the last three games, Miami has lost twice. So for us, evaluating all of their work, we felt that Alabama had the advantage over Miami.

Miami is coming off a 42-38 road loss to Syracuse and has lost two of its last three games. Meanwhile, Alabama bounced back from an ugly 24-3 road loss to Oklahoma two weeks ago with a 28-14 win over rival Auburn at home last week.

Here’s a look at the social media reaction to Alabama clinching the final projected College Football Playoff berth against Miami:

Social media reacts to Alabama edging out Miami for CFP