Embarrassing Alabama loss could open new door for Miami football to the CFP

Everything has gone Miami's way so far with championship week, and now it's on the College Football Playoff committee to do the right thing.

Georgia knocked off Alabama to win the SEC Championship. Truthfully, that game might not have meant much in the grand scheme of things, but a three-loss Alabama team might be on the bubble and could give the committee an easy out in deciding between the Hurricanes and Notre Dame.

With the SEC title on the line, Alabama looked nothing short of sluggish on offense, with Kirby Smart and Co. completely taking Ryan Grubb's group of the game. With Alabama looking lifeless from start to finish, could the Tide have actually played themselves out of the CFP?

Texas Tech's win made Miami's path clear

While the Bama loss was eye-opening, the big news came earlier when Texas Tech destroyed BYU 34-7 in the Big XII conference championship game. That means the Big XII is a one-bid conference. The Big Ten already had Ohio State, Indiana and Oregon as locks. The SEC has Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Ole Miss. 

Alabama came into the game ranked No. 9 in the CFP standings and, truth be told, the Crimson Tide are probably still in, even with three losses and one of those being a bad loss to Florida State. However, their performance is still something to be discussed among the committee.

With that said, if we were to assume that the top nine spots were locked going into Saturday, Tulane's victory last night in the American Conference game earned the Green Wave a ticket. That leaves two spots open. If Virginia wins the ACC Championship Game tonight, the Cavaliers are in. If Duke wins, James Madison is probably in. 

Either way, that leaves one open spot for two teams — Miami or Notre Dame.

The Miami-Notre Dame debate is front and center

For weeks, the CFP committee has tried to avoid the Miami vs. Notre Dame discussion. They were hoping that Miami would slip up again, but the Hurricanes closed the season on a four-game win streak. The committee hoped that Miami wouldn't pass their phony little eye test over the past month and the Hurricanes won the games by an average of 37-10.

The committee has always kept a buffer between Miami and Notre Dame. Two weeks ago, Miami was No. 12, and the Irish were No. 9. After the events of rivalry week ended, Notre Dame and Alabama flipped spots and BYU was the only team between the Hurricanes and Irish.

Now there's no one left to separate these two teams with identical 10–2 records. The only thing that remains is weighing the resume of one team against the other. And the first question that comes up in any situation like this is: Did the two teams play each other? And, if so, who won the game?

Miami won the game. And the Hurricanes should be in the playoff.