Alabama is … No. 3?

Alabama is also No. 44 and No. 10 and a whole bunch of numbers that either don’t make sense or agree with one another.

Like we said Sunday, nobody knows anything this season and that includes the machines we once partially trusted with deciding a national champion. The aforementioned rankings are a sampling of the computer ratings that once comprised one-third of the BCS formula.

They show a lot without saying much at the same time.

There are a boat load of computer ratings to be found across the web that attempt to appraise the quality of football with algorithms instead of eyeballs. Of those, six were part of the BCS formula (1998-2013).

The most well-known of the six was the Sagarin Ratings that appeared for years in the pages — web and print — of USA Today. It’s this formula that spit out Alabama as the No. 3 team in the nation.

That’s five places ahead of the undefeated Texas team that came to Tuscaloosa and beat the Crimson Tide, 34-24 on Sept. 8. Michigan, No. 2 in the human polls, is No. 6 in the Sagarin ratings that has Alabama the top one-loss team until you hit LSU at No. 10.

How that rating is calculated isn’t publicly available though there is some description above the rankings on Sagarin’s website.

He’s not alone but far from the consensus. There are two other computer ratings listed on the composite compiled by the Massey Ratings that have Alabama at No. 3.

A total of 13 of the 54 ratings included have the Crimson Tide as a top-5 team after dipping all the way to No. 13 in last week’s Associated Press poll — its lowest ranking there in eight years — and 12th in the coaches poll.

ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) has Alabama at No. 4, again ahead of No. 7 Texas. Its projection, however, forecasts a record of 9.4-3.1 for the Tide and an 8% chance of winning out.

The other end of the spectrum isn’t quite as crowded.

The Colley Matrix was the BCS computer that had Alabama all the way down at No. 44 – just ahead of Marshall and one spot behind Temple. The fact Alabama’s wins came over No. 106 Middle Tennessee State and No. 114 South Florida probably didn’t help but, like the other ratings, formulas and methodologies aren’t disclosed.

The BC Moore Rankings supplied Alabama’s lowest ranking on Massey’s composite at No. 46.

And the consensus of those 54 ratings puts Alabama at the same No. 13 ranking as the Associated Press poll.

Auburn is No. 24 in that consensus with a high of No. 14 and a low of No. 61.

And Georgia, top-ranked in every human poll, is No. 1 in 27 of the 54 ratings. Six of those ratings had the Bulldogs outside of the top 10 with a low of 29.

What does any of this really mean?

Nothing beyond illustrating how wildly unpredictable things are while making you wonder what the computers are seeing that the humans aren’t. We reached out to a few of the minds behind the former BCS computer rankings to get a better understanding for how this works but haven’t heard back.

So, we’re left to ponder a world where a few computers think Alabama’s No. 3 while others have Georgia outside the top-25.

And that’s just crazy, even for 2023.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.