Navy bursts Alabama’s bubble with Armed Forces Bowl win

Navy accomplished something mighty Alabama couldn’t on Friday: beat mediocre Oklahoma.

The Midshipmen downed the Sooners, 21-20, in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, busting the Crimson Tide’s case as a College Football Playoff snub.

After all, any team that lost to the Sooners in the regular season — like Alabama — had no business sniffing the CFP.

If college football’s highest-paid and most prominent talking heads were to be believed, Alabama was unjustly snubbed for a CFP berth over Indiana (11-2) and SMU (11-3).

Following the 12-team reveal on Dec. 8, ESPN college football analyst and former Alabama head coach Nick Saban argued the committee didn’t weigh Alabama’s strength of schedule advantage over SMU heavily enough.

“If we don’t take strength of schedule into consideration, is there any benefit to scheduling really good teams in the future?” Saban asked, as though Alabama deserved a medal for scheduling South Florida (7-6, sixth in American), Wisconsin (5-7, 12th in Big Ten), Western Kentucky (8-6, second in Conference USA) and FCS Mercer (11-3, first in Southern).

While not specifically naming Alabama, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit criticized the committee for having the audacity to factor wins and losses into deciding the 12-team field.

“I hope next year the committee won’t get caught up with what social media and a lot of the ‘fringe’ fans get caught up with which is wins,” Herbstreit said on “SportsCenter.”

Alabama (9-3) finished 11th in the final CFP rankings, one spot below SMU for the final at-large playoff berth. 

With its loss, Oklahoma (6-7) finished with a losing record for the second time in three seasons. It also went 6-7 in 2022, Brent Venables’ first season as head coach.

While the Sooners have lost numerous players to the transfer portal, that doesn’t explain away their loss to Navy (10-3), which was blown out by No. 5 Notre Dame earlier this season, 51-14.

Oklahoma jumped out to a 14-0 lead, clearly not demoralized by its departing talent. 

It had the depth to beat Navy, but the Midshipmen were the better team.

Oklahoma outgained Navy 433-318, but that was due to its 84-53 play advantage. Navy averaged more yards per play (6-5.2).

And when the game hung in the balance on a two-point conversion, Navy stopped Oklahoma with a sack.

Friday was a bad day for SEC exceptionalism, most notably in Tuscaloosa. Navy’s win should quiet Alabama’s staunchest defenders for the rest of the season.