Dan Wolken Explains His Disagreement with Alabama’s CFB Playoff Ranking [VIDEO]

The first College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night and the most-talked about team was Alabama, who ended up in the top four despite having one loss.

The overall tone on social media was that the Crimson Tide got in based on perception rather than results, and one of the most vocal members of the media was USA Today writer Dan Wolken.

Inside the Locker Room with Wimp & Barry had Wolken on the show Wednesday morning to dive deeper into this topic and explain why he disagreed so strongly with Alabama's ranking.

"Alabama is the only team that gets forgiven for having a loss, and I don't understand that," Wolken said. "And it wasn't a great loss. It was a home loss. They turned the ball over five times. They gave up 400-something yards of offense, and they did it to a team that subsequently got blasted by Florida and lost by two touchdowns to Memphis.

Fans and media members have become very vocal in recent years about that Alabama's past success continues to carry it year after year.

"I would agree that Alabama gets the benefit of the doubt because of what they did between 2009 and 2012. There's no question in my mind," Wolken said. "As far as what I see when I watch this Alabama team? I do not see as good of a team as what Alabama was in that period of time.

"I think there's much more parity across the board. I think that Alabama, while very talented, has some holes that those teams didn't have. But I do think that they get the benefit of the brand name. The fact that people just believe, based on recruiting rankings or whatever else, that Nick Saban and Alabama are automatically one of the top four teams in the country."

The frustration for Wolken, along with many college football fans, is that it's difficult to get a solid grasp of what goes into the selection committee's rankings. These rankings will change significantly before December.

"At some point, the results have to matter," Wolken said. "I thought that this process with the committee was supposed to be about, that the results were going to matter."

The one thing everyone can agree on is that there's plenty of football left to be played, including a huge one this weekend between #2 LSU and #4 Alabama.