Andy & Ari On3 - Georgia DESTROYS Alabama in the SEC Championship | Will Crimson Tide make the CFP?

Episode Date: December 7, 2025

Watch here as Andy & Ari instantly react LIVE to the SEC Championship between Georgia and Alabama. As Georgia scored first off the heels of a blocked punt, can Alabama come back to beat the Bulldogs for a second time this season? Find out here as Andy & Ari react to this pivotal game from Atlanta. This show is presented by Modelo! Some things in life are just made for each other. Peanut Butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese. Modelo and college football. If you’re watching this, it means you live and breathe football. All season long. You know what that makes you? A Full-Time Fan. Which means you deserve a Modelo. Because football wouldn’t be the same without you. Modelo is the official beer sponsor of The College Football Playoff. Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL Our show is also presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code CFB when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Join On3 today and get one full year of access to The Athletic included! https://www.on3.com/subscribe/C Watch our show on YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/mqur2A0pHX8Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to an instant reaction edition of Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM and Ari. When we went on the air after the Big 12 championship, I said Alabama would have to lose by something like 40 for the committee to leave the Crimson Tide out of the college football playoff field. Alabama lost 28-7. It only felt like them losing by 40. They rushed for negative 5, I'm sorry, negative 3 yards. their longest run of the day was five yards this was belt to ass you know this feeling i have right now this is why i do this for a living because this is so compelling okay right it is so compelling and obviously rooting interests are going to um steer the ship for people who are in the

chat hoping something happens for their team or a team against them andy this is kind of a this i don't even not we have to unpack a lot here okay So first, let me just ask you, is Alabama going to be in the playoff in your mind? I don't know. Let me answer your question with a question. I want you to rank the following teams. Because Hunter Eurecheck mentioned this last week. He said these four teams were kind of being compared together.

And this was after they had jumped Alabama over Notre Dame after last week when Notre Dame had been Stanford, Alabama won the Iron Bowl. Neither one had really, you know, Alabama had not been super impressed in the Iron Bowl. Notre Dame beat Stanford, but Stanford's not very good. So they jump Alabama over Notre Dame. Hunter Eurocheck, the chair of the committee, says, essentially, that the group they are comparing most closely is Alabama, Notre Dame, BYU, Miami. So that would be 9, 10, 11, 12. Remember, the cut line's 10. You have to be 10 or higher to get an at-large spot in this situation.

I want you to rank the following four teams, Alabama, Notre Dame, BYU, and Miami right now. Okay, there's a distinction, how I would rank them based on resumes and everything or who I think would be most successful. I want you to rank them based on who you think would do the best in the playoff. Okay, because that would be different. Right. I want you to rank them based on, and in the committee, remember, we talk about, oh, they've got to go by resumes they don't remember best four back in the four team versus most deserving four if they say best ten are the outlarges well it wouldn't be ten but you know what i mean to be

the best seven that aren't conference champions are the at large is rank those four teams in the order you think that they would do best in the playoff to they would do worse in the playoff okay very torn at number one i'm going to go miami one notre dame two alabama three b yu for okay um if you want to make a case because i do think that i think Miami at its peak is probably the best but Miami hasn't been able to sustain its peak longer than Notre Dame so like that's that's a little bit but you would be putting Miami and Notre Dame in the playoff in that case I and leaving Alabama out I do and like then like all the people who have suffered through my Notre Dame brain uh discussion on the playoff are

alleviated because like to me this is the cleanest solution to that I'm not even thinking about it as a clean solution. I'm just thinking about it as your order and my order would be very similar. I don't know if I'd I don't know if I'd put Notre Dame ahead of Miami. Maybe I'll just put Miami ahead of Notre Dame because they won the head to head. But those two feel if I were putting teams in the playoff, trying to decide who

could win the most games in the playoff, I would have more confidence in them than I would in Alabama and UI. This is the, yeah, I'm with you 100%. Yeah. This is the, I think the column off game or this is what I think the takeaway of the game is it's not necessarily um if Alabama is in or out I think it's a holistic discussion about how losers of conference championship games should be treated and I'm going to get this whole thing out here Andy go for it last year the committee did something for the first time in its existence and that is not penalize the conference

championship game losers because there were more spots to give but that doesn't mean that we haven't lived in a college football playoff world where the conference championship game losers have been penalized in the past. You made a good point and reminded me of one. I think there have been a few. Stuart Mandel tweeted it and it reminded me, so I don't want to take the credit for that, but I think there have been others.

But in 2017, Auburn came into the championship weekend as the number two team and it got beaten badly by Georgia. Right. And it fell from number two to number seven in an idle Alabama moved into the playoff as a result of that game. So to sit here and clutch pearls about the importance of the,

the importance of making sure that the college football, or I mean, the conference championship games exist still and all this. Like there's no sanctity in like in the idea that there can't be consequences for losing these games. I understand why somebody would think that it's unfair. Well, here's the other thing. Last year, we, we keep saying they didn't get penalized that the conference

title game losers didn't get penalized they did they did they didn't mean coming out of the field but here's the other thing too well let me let me explain what happened so last year going into championship weekend pen state was number three and smu was number eight texas was number two so coming out of the games which texas pen state and smu lost texas dropped one spot to number three Penn State dropped one spot to number four. SMU dropped two spots to number 10. Yeah. If you drop two spots if you're Alabama, you are out. Yeah. So, Andy, also, if you're an SEC fan and you want to guard the sanctity of the SEC championship game,

I didn't see a lot of SEC fans like crying their eyes out that BYU is probably going to get left out. Right. They weren't guarding the sanctity of that championship game. So your championship game is important, but the one in Dallas earlier wasn't. If Alabama wanted to be in, they wanted to guard the sanctity of the SEC championship, they just showed up and played it. Yeah. So I want to describe what's going on here with two separate comedies from our generation.

Okay. One was one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of our time, which is stepbrothers. And in the movie Step Brothers, when Dale and Brennan show up to the interview, they're wearing tuxedos. And they're all having a good time. They like each other, whatever. And then Brennan, I believe it was. was Brendan or was it Dale. One of them lets out a long, prolonged part. And then Seth

Rogan, the person who was doing the interview said, in retrospect, the tuxedo's seemed kind of messed up. That is the Florida State loss. Yes, because you have now booked into, Alabama's book into the season with blowout losses. Now, one of the blowout losses is to the SDC champion, a team that Alabama already beat, by the way, on the road. Yes. The other blowout loss is to a team that was god-awful in the ACC. God-awful. Now I'm going to go to my second cinematic. Okay.

You know in the movie Dumb and Dumber, when they're in the diner, and Lloyd and Harry are sitting at the booth. Hold on, hold on. I don't want to help here. Dalton in the chat. In all caps, so they're yelling. Miami has two unranked losses.

Yes, but how many games did each of those teams win, ultimately? They both won eight games. Okay, so unranked, like losing to Florida State and losing to Louisville are different. Yeah. So back to dumb and dumber. Okay. They're sitting in the booth and then Harry throws a salt shaker. And he doesn't throw a little salt like you're supposed to throw a salt over here.

He throws the whole shaker and it hits a lovely gentleman named Seabass. Seabass walks, do you know where I'm going with this? I don't, but I can't wait. Seabass walks over to the booth to confront. Lloyd. Yes. Who's the dead man that hit me with the salt shaker? And then Lloyd goes like this and points at Harry.

Right, right, right. Miami is Seabas. Okay. Lloyd is Notre Dame. Okay. And Alabama is Harry. Lloyd is pointing at Bamma. Notre Dame's like, don't look at us.

Look at that guy. Look at that guy. It's not us. And I think that that's actually what's happening. Everybody in college football, as we're coming into today, we even discussed it. you a little bit more profoundly than me, but I was with you thought that Alabama could do nothing outside. And I was, I think I was wrong.

But there was a systematic shift there in. Yeah. And I don't know if you're with me on this. It felt like Alabama was 95% in when we woke up this morning. And as that game progressed, it started to feel clearer in clearer as that game was going on and Alabama was getting beaten and not just beaten. I mean, they got their ass kicked in this game. Like, right?

That's a fair statement. They got their ass kick. It's interesting because, you know, in, In prior years, if we'd seen that, we would have been like, well, we haven't seen Alabama lose like this and God knows how long. But we have seen this Alabama team lose like that in week one. In Tallahassee in week one. But as the game was progressing and that was becoming more, it started to feel like Alabama was out. I think the entire like Notre Dame has done very.

Now, everything went well for Notre Dame today. I want to ask you, are we being prisoners of the moment? That's, that's a fair question. The committee is, is watching this and digesting this with us. but they are not making any final decisions until probably tomorrow morning. Maybe late tonight, but probably tomorrow morning. Prisoners of the moment is my, I am a prisoner of the moment. That is your default mode.

Yes, I know. So save me from it. If you think that I'm overreacting. But I was on Twitter. I'm not the only one. Like there's a lot of, I have a hard time saving you from it because watching this game convinced me that I would rather see a playoff that had Miami and Notre Dame in it

than Alabama because I think, Miami and Notre Dame have a better chance of going deep in the playoff in Alabama. And like here's the other thing too when people say I don't want to penalize the conference championship game loser when other teams are sitting at home. Do we can we just say what the actual reality

of this is? Alabama played the same exact game that they played against Auburn, except they were playing a good team this time. Yeah. Like Alabama didn't look great in their regular season finale either and they were, they managed to move on. Yeah, the end of the season. See, Alabama had a great run in the middle of the season.

where they won at Georgia, they beat Vanderbilt, they beat Missouri, they beat Tennessee. And that is undeniable. They were really good then. But the Alabama we've seen in the last few weeks has not been that. And then when you couple that with the Alabama, we saw at the beginning of the season that lost to a team that was objectively terrible as the season went on. Yeah. It's not cut and dry it anymore. It's not.

Now, and I don't think the committee should consider this at all, but I'm going to tell you this. the SEC will go scorched earth if Bama gets left out. Yeah. They're going to. Yeah. And remember the SEC and the Big Ten control how the college football playoff works.

So I don't mean they're going to do anything about it right now, but as they discuss future formats, like this is the sort of thing that will have Greg Sanky call all the ADs to a meeting and say, okay, how do we want to fix this? Yeah. And you know what? We'll deal with that when it happens.

But I'm not, the committee doesn't need to think about that at all. The committee just needs to pick the teams they think deserve to be there. I mean, it's not like SEC wasn't posturing a year ago. Like, I mean, that's just what we do at this time. And, like, honestly, everybody else is posturing. Like, everybody, like, tries to make it seem like Greg Sanky's the only person that threatens and says things. Everybody does this too. Yeah, yeah.

The Big 12 does it. I mean, Brett Yormark, this week before the Big 12 championship game was talking about how BYU was getting enough perspective. It is a commissioner's job to do what he feels as best for his conference. And if you feel like threatening or throwing a tantrum or whatever it is, not that he's doing it, But whatever it is to do to make your conference, I don't think that the SEC has been a conference that's been persecuted. So, you know, I think that this is interesting because there are now a lot of ways to, you know, like the college football play off, the context, the wins, the losses,

the strength of schedule, the metrics is like I, it's like I feel like you're in a maze for three months or three weeks, four weeks. Every week we're trying to put the pieces together of where do this team go, what does this team? And I think that at the end of the road, my only concern isn't who's in. my only concern is making sure that whoever does get in that the process was done in a way that's justifiable and right so now I think that the focus because the games tonight outside of the ACC right the ACC affects the it's on its own island it doesn't affect anything else

yeah I think now the discussion is what is the committee's path of least resistance to creating a college football playoff field that will undoubtedly upset some but be justifiable to most and I think that that path is leaving Alabama out, putting Miami and Notre Dame both in, so they don't have to answer the question. And I brought this up to you earlier in the conference room, and I want you to tell me if you think this, if I'm on to something. All right. I covered the Ohio State team in 2014 that lost its quarterback in the regular season finale against Michigan, had a backup quarterback come in. They won their conference championship game 59 to nothing. But as that was all

happening, it's easy to forget how contentious that was because Ohio State wound up winning the national And Baylor and TCU were right there. TCU was ranked number three. And this was a similar situation to the Miami Notre Dame situation this year, where Baylor and TCU had the same record. They had played. Right. Baylor had won, but because Baylor lost right before the committee started doing rankings,

they started Baylor behind TCU. And they kept Baylor behind TCU, except in the final ranking, they flipped them. But it didn't matter in terms of the playoffs. off because they had jumped Ohio State, and that's where you're going with us. Ohio State jumped them. Right. They jumped Ohio State to number four. And I don't know what happened in that committee room, but my understanding.

They said Ohio State would have beaten these teams 78 to 12. But my belief, but like if they actually felt that way, then Ohio State wouldn't have been the fourth seat. I don't remember correctly. They could have put them up even higher maybe. But I think that part of the reason why Ohio State made the field, because I remember vividly where I was the first reveal of the playoff. I remember we weren't sure Ohio. It's easy to forget now. because it's been a decade.

We weren't sure they were getting in that day. But I think that part of the reason they got in was to rescue the committee from making an unwinnable decision. Yeah. Which I believe. Well, I don't think that was an unwinnable decision. I think if they were going to do it, you'd put Baylor in because Baylor won the game. Right.

But it was kind of the same exact scenario that we're facing with Miami and Notre Dame. And I wonder if the path of least resistance, the one where you do not have to make that decision is to penalize Alabama for looking very bad. Well, they still have to make the decision. It just doesn't matter. And I'll go to Slate Lab's question. Well, they put Notre Dame to 9th and Bama to 10th. I think they'll put Miami 9th, Notre Dame 10th.

They'll fix the whole thing. Yeah. You put Notre Dame behind Miami. Notre Dame doesn't care because Notre Dame's in. Right. They both go on the road and play a good team. Notre Dame fans have been attacking me because my premise results with them not being in. But if they're still in, I don't know if we're going to quibble overseeding.

They fix that mistake that they've been making. And I'm not, I'm not changing. my mind. It's been a mistake. I don't know how it's going to happen tomorrow. If Miami is out and Notre Dame is in, that is unquestionably bad to me. Well, it also means Alabama's in, too, if that happens. So I think that the, again, the easiest thing for them to do, because there is a certain ease to this. They're in a room. They have to put a field together. And when they put the field together, they're all looking at saying, can we do good. Let me ask you something. If the Florida State loss didn't exist and Alabama had lost this game to Georgia and it was the

second loss. It would be much more difficult. It would be like Alabama would still be in there. It would be no. Yes, it would be much more difficult. It's that extra loss because Alabama has quality wins. We can't forget that they won. They beat the team that beat them up tonight. Perhaps more quality wins than anybody. Right. I'm not trying to erase what they did this year. Like that's not it. But at the end of the road, you know, we talk about the net, it's a necessity to have a human element in to parse through things computers can't parse through. Right. I don't know what their process is going to look like on Sunday morning when they're finishing this up. But at the end of the road, there's going to be a white board,

and they're going to write the field on the board, and everybody in that room is going to look at it. And when they're done, they know the consequences of their decision in a way that they don't when they're releasing the rankings on a weekly basis. And in good faith, looking at the board, they have to feel good about it. And the best way to feel good about it, I think, is to drop the team that's lost its conference championship game, the way that Alabama lost, with also a Florida state loss on its resume,

while also surviving and rescuing themselves from having to choose between Notre Dame and Miami, which I'll be honest with you is one of the more difficult head decisions ever. I think it should be easy because of the, but it's not an easy decision. Clearly not easy for them. So they haven't made decisions yet.

And there's a lot of people online that don't think that it's as cut and dry as I do. So like it's to me, if we end up with Alabama out, and then you also have consistency with how you treat BYU. Because if BYU gets left out, right. And they look at the field in Alabama still,

in, they're like, well, what the hell is going on here? We have one fewer loss and then we lost the same top-by team. That BYU situation and Alabama situation, relative to the conference title game opponent are different because BYU played the same game twice against Texas Tech. They got smashed both times. Alabama went on the road and beat Georgia and then came back and got smashed by Jordan. But a Texas Tech fan will tell you, we had the unfortunate nature of playing one of the three best teams in the sport.

We lost twice. We beat everybody else. like, why are we any more or less worthy? I just don't think that you can penalize one and not the other. And you mentioned 2017 when we were watching the game. And I think 2017 is an interesting year to talk about too, because that's the year that Auburn beat Georgia and beat Alabama was the SEC West champion lost to Georgia in the SEC championship game,

convincingly, despite crushing them in the Jordan Hare game. Auburn was left out. Georgia and Alabama got in. It's not like this is the first of the national title. This has been going on. Everybody pretends like because last year happened that like nobody's ever been penalized for losing their conference championship game before. Last year also was a lot cleaner at the bottom.

Yeah. Because there was a gap between the teams that lost their conference championship games because those teams that were on the outside looking in had an extra loss they don't have this year. Spider in the chat with an interesting question. Would they seed Miami, Notre Dame number eight and number nine for a playoff game between them? I don't think they could because you. you'd have to drop they both would have to be in the road right you'd have to move somebody down you'd have to move the current number eight which is number eight right i don't know

i have to let that up oklahoma you have to move oklahoma down to yeah which actually if we're going by like the vagus lines rankings you could get away with that if you wanted to yeah i mean i guess if you did that you Miami would have to be home again right but you'd be taking a home game away yeah Miami would have to be home game away from oklahoma they're not going to do that yeah they're not going to do that and also you'd also too just because like the me and Andy and all of you have been arguing for a month about Notre Dame in Miami doesn't mean that the committee's invested in that in solving that problem like they're not invested in creating matchups to make sure that we get at the yeah no I I think

they put like I think they put one at nine and one at 10 yeah that's how and that's how they would both get in if they both got in if like tomorrow we're in here and they're releasing the playoff and that's what happens that entire debate that has caused me to have white hair grow out of the side of my head gone it's not even a discussion point anymore there's nothing to talk about. So if it happens tomorrow where Alabama's still in and Miami is out, then I will go nuclear. What's the word? Nuclear. Nuclear again. So by the way, if Notre Dame's 10, we would probably see a rematch of a regular season game, except at the other home, at the other field. Do the, like, I'm, my, my brain is mush right now. It would be Notre Dame at Texas A&M. And remember

A&M beat Notre Dame in overtime in South Bend. If I were Texas A&M, I would hold the shit out of them on the first play of the game. Well, I didn't call it last time. Yeah, you know, but I think that, like, the picture is actually starting to be, like, I woke up this one, I'm thinking, bad banana, Miami lost to unranked teams. Eight and four record has nothing to do with it. Miami should have beaten. Eighth four record does have something.

This is the whole. Yeah, it does. Why are you obsessed with the number 25? Yeah, that's just not true. Yeah, they arbitrarily chose the number 25. You think losing to number 26 and losing to a team that's like, six? The losing the number 26 and losing the number 67 are very different things. And the committee parses through that.

So like, you know, your notions of what is good for you might be your notions, but that doesn't make it reality. You can say things like that. Well, people say that because they just want their thing to win. Whatever their thing is, they want it to win. Stating something as if it's a fact, doesn't make it one. Yeah. All right, AZ says Alabama's punished movie number 10. This allows the committee to promote Notre Dame to number nine, which still avoids the head-to-head with Miami at 11.

but it still doesn't solve the problem of Notre Dame and Miami have the same record, a fairly identical resume. They played in Miami 1. That would be incredibly stupid for the committee to do it that way. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I actually felt like when we woke up this morning,

Andy, that this was going to be a very complicated long 36 hours. And like, I don't know what your thoughts are after all this, but like my thing is, is I have a clean solution to the problem. Now, it's not going to make Alabama fans happy, but I think that's a clean solution. Do you agree with that? I agree it's a clean solution. I don't think they're looking at it that way.

Okay. I don't think they look at it. I think if they do this, it's because they think that Notre Dame and Miami have a better chance of success in the college football playoff than Alabama. And having watched Alabama and Notre Dame in Miami all season, who do you think can go deeper in the playoff?

Yeah. I mean, you, yeah. I mean, they all could win games in the playoff. Mm-hmm. But they've all, well, actually, Notre Dame hasn't beaten a team that yeah, is going to be in the playoff. the other ones have and Notre Dame would be favored over all over the other two if they played today so I don't know what that was compelling it's crazy that was compelling that was

great that was a fun game that was a well it was an interesting game I don't know it's a fun game because the results and the way it was playing out opened up Pandora's box of possibilities the Pandora's box of the things that can happen when we wake up tomorrow are so vast and like i don't know like i don't think either of us could say that we know what they're going to do i have no idea what they're going to do i i have given you guys the potential outcomes but i think predicting one would be a fool's aaron right now i i really don't know what they're going to do yep it's going to be fun it's going to be uh probably a restless night for the committee i don't know do you think they sleep well these nights they're in the marriott

the gay lord right they're staying there tonight yeah they get really good baking and on their breakfast bar. I know that. Dude, I don't think people know this because when they did the playoff mock when I went and sat in the room and you did, they had a great spread. They did. The cookies are good too.

Yeah. Those people are fell well. Yeah. You know, they're getting their hotel points and they're getting their free breakfast. So I'm sure they'll be fine. All right. We have one more of these. The ACC title game is about to start.

And of course, the actual football game that we've all wanted to see. The Big Ten championship game is stakes of it. It may not be anything. Compelling, but. Yeah. It may be that Ohio State and Indiana begin the day one and two and our one and two tomorrow. And we actually don't even know yet who has a more favorable path for being the one or the three seat. Like it could come out where they both get buys and the loser of the game tonight actually has an easier path.

And doesn't want to see who they might see. Yeah. So like, you know, I think this is a huge game for Indiana. I think that, you know, from a program standpoint, if you want to, you know, Kurtz and Eddie said this, I believe, on TV before the said we're not underdogs. this is Titan versus Titan or something of that nature. Well, you've got to prove that, buddy. You've got to prove that tonight.

You've got to prove that on the field. I don't think that you're a Titan in the Big Ten until you beat Ohio State. So we'll see, you know, what goes on. But I think that that was a really, really awesome window. And I think that it gave us something to talk about for sure. It's going to be a fascinating next few hours. Let's watch some games. We will be back after these games.

Try to contextualize everything that happened today and then try to project what the committee is going to do. Remember how I said it's a fool's Aaron. and I can't possibly predict. Well, Ari and I are going to have to. So we're going to do it. We're going to try to do it right after the Big Ten and the ACC championship games. We will talk to you then.