This is an opinion column.

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Brace yourself, Alabama. The fix is in.

The College Football Playoff committee is going to keep the Crimson Tide out of its four-team folly even if Alabama upsets Georgia in the SEC championship game.

I’m still having a hard time believing it based on the traditional clout of the SEC, but that appears to be the most likely outcome for Alabama barring multiple miracles across the country this weekend.

And I’m not sure that the Crimson Tide can conjure up Fourth and 31-scenarios in conference championships involving the Pac-12, ACC and Big 12.

If it makes everyone feel better about the situation, just go ahead and consider Texas an SEC team in disguise. The Longhorns are joining the league next season, but their roster is already filled with SEC-caliber players and coaches. Although, now that I think about it, I’m not so sure that “SEC-caliber players” actually means the same thing as it did just a couple years ago.

Want proof that the transfer portal and NIL payments are beginning to allow something that resembles parity throughout major college football? In the penultimate release of the College Football Playoff rankings, Alabama (11-1) was once again stuck at No.8 by the College Football Playoff committee behind, in order, Georgia, (12-0), Michigan (12-0), Washington (12-0), FSU (12-0), Oregon (11-1), Ohio State (11-1) and Texas (11-1).

I haven’t seen a bro-fest that overcrowded with collegiate angst since Club La Vela in Panama City Beach circa 1997. It was always the Midwestern kids who caused all the problems. Go figure.

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My blood pressure still hasn’t come down from Fourth and 31, but No.8 Alabama will test the integrity of my heart once again on Saturday against No.1 Georgia in the SEC championship game. If Alabama is indeed a lame duck, then maybe the Crimson Tide can take joy in preventing Georgia from winning three national championships in a row.

It’s the little things sometimes.

Alabama last squared off against Georgia in the 2021 national championship game. Injuries to Alabama’s two best receivers (Jameson Williams and John Metchie) gave the Bulldogs an advantage after Alabama had already upset Georgia in the 2021 SEC championship game. This time, it’s Georgia with the banged up pass catchers (Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey), so an upset by the Crimson Tide wouldn’t shock me anymore than the regular-season comebacks against rivals Tennessee and Auburn.

Let’s be real, though. It appears like Alabama is going to receive a front-row seat to the failed four-team College Football Playoff in its final year of existence.

It’s not that Alabama isn’t worthy of the postseason. It’s that a four-team playoff format where teams are selected by a panel of college football administrators whose salaries are subsidized by the TV networks is a piece of corruptible junk that never should have existed in the first place.

I’ve been writing this for years and years at this point. There was a time along the journey when me and Greg Sankey did this fun little dance together every year. I would ask Sankey why the playoff wasn’t expanding, and the SEC commissioner would always fire back that “four works.”

Well, to borrow some lawyerese attorney-speak from the commissioner, it appears like one of us was right.

I love Sankey. I think he’s the best commissioner in sports. He should be the Grand Admiral Poobah of College Football. He was dead wrong about four working.

Four-wheel drive works in the backcountry. Four years per term for the President is a good number. Four points on a compass are great for when you’re lost in the woods. The four weeks of Advent make perfect sense.

The four-team playoff for college football was such a colossal latrine of triumph that it makes that pool back at Club La Vela seem clean by comparison.

OK, rant over.

Last season, Alabama coach Nick Saban tried to make a case that his two-loss team deserved a spot in the playoff. This season, his one-loss team is at the back of the pack again. The changes made to college football to govern the SEC’s recruiting prowess are clearly working. The Crimson Tide doesn’t have a clear path to the postseason despite potentially being the champion of its league.

Perhaps it’s unfair, but fair has never been the point of the exercise in college football. Is the SEC still the best conference? Maybe having Deion Sanders at Arkansas would shore things up, but that’s a column for another day.

For Alabama, that awful fourth quarter against Texas can’t be papered over or made to go away. Nothing else matters more than head-to-head. Otherwise, why even play the games? At the time, I wrote that plenty of questions remained about Texas as a contender, but there was no doubt about Alabama’s diminished status. Alabama might be the most improved team in the country, but that doesn’t make it one of the four best.

Perhaps there’s another level for Alabama to achieve. The committee should keep an open mind if nothing else. By my eyes, Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe will be the best player in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. That’s a start.

There is a sliver of hope for the Crimson Tide, and so this weekend will be a fascinating spectacle of scoreboard watching like college football has never seen.

The committee did Alabama a favor by ranking Georgia No.1. I’m not sure the Bulldogs are the best team in the country, but if there is a scenario where Alabama makes the playoff then it begins with defeating the top-ranked team.

After that, Alabama should be rooting for Louisville against FSU, Oklahoma State against Texas and Washington against Oregon. There’s something for everyone on the final Saturday of the season. Auburn fans can even root for Bo Nix to break Alabama’s hearts one last time.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, wild times and rum.