BYU and Alabama, the 9th and 11th-ranked teams in the most recent round of the College Football Playoff rankings, both got their own backsides handed to them during conference championship weekend. BYU lost their second game of the year to the same team, 4th-ranked Texas Tech. Alabama was driven through the turf by a 3rd-ranked Georgia team they had already beaten earlier in the game.
While these teams were humiliated on national television, fellow at-large hopefuls 10 Notre Dame and 12 Miami watched from home. Whether absent from their own conference championship or absent from a conference entirely, these teams have placed their fate in the hands of the selection committee as both BYU and Alabama failed to claim an automatic qualification.