**Editor’s Note: Time to take the 6-0 Challenge and make your Week 10 picks against “Joe vs. the Pro and the Hero.” Joseph Goodman’s popular college football picks feature, “Joe vs. the Pro and the Hero,” is adding readers to the action this season. Pick your Week 10 games here, and sign up for Joe’s newsletter to see how your picks compare to the experts (and Joe) as well as other readers.

________________________

This is an opinion column.

Alabama is usually penciled into the playoff projections this week, but that early loss to Texas continues to give the field hope.

At No.9 in the first week of the College Football Playoff rankings, Alabama’s path to the postseason is straightforward but treacherous. The Crimson Tide can’t lose another game. If only the 12-team playoff could start this season instead of the next. Based on the format for the expanded playoffs, Alabama would be slated to host a first-round playoff game against Oklahoma.

It would have been the Jalen Hurts Bowl of our dreams. Oh, well.

Alabama coach Nick Saban had it right this week when he said that he doesn’t pay attention to the first set of CFP rankings. So much will be different by the end of the season and Alabama could be out of the running as early as Saturday if the Crimson Tide doesn’t take care of LSU. It feels like Alabama’s CFP hopes have been playing with borrowed time ever since that ugly loss to Texas, but this team keeps improving week to week.

What’s it going to take for Alabama to make the playoffs? Analyze the games and the matchups and the losses and the eye-tests anyway you want. In the end, it’s all going to come down to whether or not Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe can transform himself into the best player in the country.

Milroe has the tools to lead Alabama to victory against any team in the playoff field, but he’s not there yet. The sharpening and the tinkering continues.

No pressure, kid, and I sure hope you don’t read the funny papers.

Doubt Milroe’s ability? Just think how much he has improved since the game against Texas. He can be twice as good as the version of himself that rallied Alabama against Tennessee, and he might need to be for Alabama to make the College Football Playoff.

The good news for Alabama is that Milroe gets LSU at Bryant-Denny Stadium and he doesn’t have to square off against Georgia for a couple more months. We’ve started to see signs of Milroe’s true potential, but more can be unlocked in the coming weeks. Against Arkansas, Milroe showed poise, and against Tennessee he showcased his bravado. Against LSU, he’ll aim to play mistake-free football and then hope Alabama’s defense can deliver a few stops against one of the best offenses in the country.

Let me be clear, though. I’d take Milroe in the NFL Draft before LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels right now. After Saturday, though? We’ll see. They said the streak of first- and second-round quarterbacks at Alabama ended with Bryce Young, but I’m not so sure about that after watching Milroe lead Alabama back from the dead against rival Tennessee.

Do I still think this Alabama team can lose to a team like Kentucky on a bad day? Absolutely, yes. Alabama’s season of hope and prayers rolls onward.

MICHIGAN GETS A BREAK

It was discouraging but not surprising that the CFP selection committee decided to rank Michigan in the first week of the playoffs. Selection committee spokesman Boo Carrigan, the athletics director at N.C. State, said Michigan’s SpyGate fiasco was a matter for the NCAA and not the CFP. Maybe the CFP selection committee can also set the field for a national punt, pass and kick competition the next time they get together.

The timetable for the NCAA’s investigation into Michigan’s clandestine sideline activity is unclear, but if the Wolverines are forced to vacate wins before this season ends then they presumably will be removed from the CFP rankings.

Michigan fans, it’s worth noting, did not appreciate my column on Monday about their favorite team’s current ordeal. Plenty of colorful language flying around the internets these days.

LOOKING AHEAD

College football’s pitted road from the old bowl system to the expanded College Football Playoff has been a clunky endeavor, but we sally forth into the potential of a more perfect future … we hope.

Projecting a 12-team playoff based off the first CFP rankings of 2023 is a foolhardy task considering the current format for the expanded postseason was created before the powers that be in college football decided to tear apart the Pac-12. Great job, y’all. Now no one gets a summer vacation because the 6+6 model for the 2024 postseason probably isn’t going to work based on these initial rankings. It would mean that five teams from the Big Ten and five teams from the SEC would make the field (in addition to FSU and Tulane).

Now more than ever, this is why my spidey senses tell me that the College Football Playoff needs to include at least 16 teams, but probably 24. The top 12 of the first CFP rankings (plus Tulane) went like this:

1. Ohio State

2. Georgia

3. Michigan

4. Florida State

5. Washington

6. Oregon

7. Texas

8. Alabama

9. Oklahoma

10. Ole Miss

11. Penn State

12. Missouri

24. Tulane

Based on the agreed upon 6+6 playoff scheme, that means a 12-team field this season would have looked like this:

FIRST-ROUND BYES

Ohio State (1)

Georgia (2)

FSU (3)

Washington (4)

FIRST-ROUND GAMES

Oklahoma (9) at Alabama (8) and the winner plays Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.

Tulane (12) at Michigan (5) and the winner plays Washington in the Fiesta Bowl.

Ole Miss (10) at Texas (7) and the winner plays Georgia in the Peach Bowl.

Penn State (11) at Oregon (6) and the winner plays FSU in the Orange Bowl.

Tasty stuff, but a fantasy at this point. Oh, and someone needs to explain to me why the SEC has to have a conference championship game to determine who gets the right to not host a first-round playoff game. It makes absolutely zero sense.

Back to the drawing board, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.

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. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.