How is Notre Dame Ranked Ahead of Alabama?

During Tuesday night's College Football Playoff rankings, the Alabama Crimson Tide came in at No. 10, behind the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Oklahoma Sooners as the third-highest-ranked two-loss team for the committee.

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Alabama fell to Oklahoma head-to-head, so it makes sense for the Crimson Tide to be behind the Sooners, but Alabama coming in behind Notre Dame (the Fighting Irish were ranked No. 9) confused some fans on Tuesday night. Notre Dame has just one ranked win based on the committee's latest rankings (No. 15 USC); meanwhile, Alabama has four wins over ranked opponents (No. 4 Georgia, No. 14 Vanderbilt, No. 20 Tennessee, and No. 22 Missouri).

The losses Alabama and Notre Dame have suffered this season were what Arkansas Athletic Director and new College Football Playoff Committee chair Hunter Yurachek said gave the Fighting Irish the edge over the Crimson Tide on Tuesday night.

"I will tell you that we probably spent more time in our committee room comparing two or three teams – [No. 8] Oklahoma, [No. 9] Notre Dame, and [No. 10] Alabama.

"Alabama had that string where they had four really strong wins at Georgia, against Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Tennessee. You look at Notre Dame, they've got a win at Southern Cal and a dominating win against a Pitt team that was ranked in our top 25.

"Really, where you break these teams down in the comparison, Notre Dame and Alabama. Notre Dame has losses to two teams that are within the top 13. A three-point loss against Miami to start the season and a one-point loss vs. Texas A&M. Alabama obviously has a two-point loss last week to Oklahoma, but they have that loss at the beginning of the season, 31-17, at Florida State, a team that's now 5-5. Florida State was up in that game 24-7, and they held Alabama to less than 100 yards rushing in that game. Really, that was a sign of some of the struggles Alabama was going to have rushing the ball.

"You go back and look at Alabama's game at South Carolina, where they scored two touchdowns late to win that game. The next game against LSU, where they won both of those, but didn't rush the ball for 100 yards. Again, against Oklahoma, was not able to move the ball on the ground. You look at the games that Alabama has struggled in, starting the season against Florida State, where they struggled to run the ball.

"This is two really good 8-2 teams. You look at the losses of Notre Dame vs. the losses of Alabama, that was really one of the defining metrics that we used."

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.