I was told that the 12-team Playoff was going to ruin the regular season and that it was going to make November meaningless.

Well, don’t ya know it.

Saturday night in Death Valley feels pretty darn meaningful. Alabama and LSU will play an all-or-nothing game for the 12-team Playoff.

The loser will be in that dreaded 3-loss territory. Sure, 3-loss teams could make the Playoff. Would I expect Alabama or LSU to be in that camp with just 1 win against a current AP Top 25 team for each of them? I wouldn’t, especially when looking at each of their remaining schedules.

That’s the other part of this. Whoever survives on Saturday night will be favored in each of their final 3 games with a clear path to 10-2 and a likely at-large Playoff berth. That’s not a guarantee. Go figure that the toughest game on that remaining slate could be LSU hosting Vandy. Alabama certainly knows how tough it is to contain Diego Pavia.

But the point remains: Win on Saturday night, and the Playoff path is within reach. Lose on Saturday night and hear about it for an entire offseason … which sounds awfully similar to the previous eras of this rivalry when 14 of the past 17 Alabama-LSU winners played in the SEC Championship.

It’s a daunting reality for Kalen DeBoer and Brian Kelly. It’s not that either of their jobs are in danger. That’s light years past a normal overreaction. But in an 8-month offseason — I suppose it’s actually a 9-month offseason if you want to count watching the Playoff from the couch in December — it feels like the loser on Saturday night will have a “can’t win the big one” label slapped on them until further notice.

The irony is that DeBoer is 14-3 vs. AP Top 25 teams during his 4+ seasons as an FBS head coach and Kelly has the most wins of any active coach in the sport. The problem for DeBoer is that if he loses, Alabama will have 3 regular-season losses for the first time since 2010. The problem for Kelly is that if he loses, he’ll drop to 4-8 vs. AP Top 25 teams at LSU.

You can bet there’ll be some reminders of those numbers for the losing coach.

While both programs are only playing in a high-stakes game as a result of the 12-team Playoff format — this would be a battle for a New Year’s 6 bowl if the 4-team Playoff were still intact — missing out on making the field will feel significantly worse because chances are, the SEC will have several teams that earn bids. As in, rivals of Alabama and LSU will be in the Playoff field. Notice I said “rivals” and not “rival.” In a conference wherein bragging rights are everything, that’ll be magnified. That might sound basic and obvious, but that shouldn’t be overlooked. Perception is often reality when games are only played in 1/3 of the year.

If the perception of Alabama and LSU is that they’re now Tier 2 programs trending in the wrong direction, reality is that can hurt both coaches on the recruiting trail. That’s more daunting than any notion that DeBoer and Kelly would struggle to recruit in the South as “Northern” coaches.

By the way, Alabama has the No. 1 ranked class in 2025 while LSU is at No. 4 with No. 1 overall recruit Bryce Underwood committed since January. The loser of Saturday night won’t suddenly suffer a slew of decommitments, but both coaches know how much easier it is to sell a vision as a Playoff team that wins big-time games than it is to sell the alternative.

Fair? That doesn’t matter. That’s the job that DeBoer and Kelly signed up for. They left comfortable situations to experience this type of SEC discomfort. Of course, they’re at different places on that journey. DeBoer is months removed from enduring the 30-day portal window after Nick Saban’s retirement while Kelly is nearly 3 years removed from inheriting a team that played 39 scholarship players in a bowl game.

Will either thing be a valid excuse for the loser on Saturday? No chance. We’ll hear more about what the losing coach wasted instead of what the winning coach maximized. For Alabama, that would be DeBoer wasting a veteran Jalen Milroe after he finished higher in the 2023 Heisman Trophy voting than any returning player in the sport. For LSU, that would be Kelly wasting a once-in-a-generation offensive tackle combination that protected the emerging Garrett Nussmeier extremely well.

I suppose that’d be easier for LSU fans to stomach than the fact that Kelly failed to even reach a New Year’s 6 bowl during Jayden Daniels’ Heisman season, and that’d be easier for Alabama fans to stomach than the fact that it failed to make the Playoff with the pre-Draft versions of Bryce Young and Will Anderson in 2022.

Then again, that was Saban, not DeBoer. The former has 7 rings; the latter is still the new guy until he earns his first ring.

Shoot, you could say the same thing about Kelly. The previous 3 LSU coaches all won a ring. Kelly is the new guy until he checks that box. That was always going to be how his LSU tenure was going to be defined. That carries more weight than his 310 wins as a head coach. Getting to No. 311 and keeping a national title on the table is priority No. 1.

And for DeBoer, the focus has never been clearer. “Our backs are to the wall. We’re going to fight each and every day, fight, scratch and claw like you’ve never seen,” he said (H/T Nick Kelly).

It remains to be seen if Alabama or LSU will embody that mindset and reach the 12-team Playoff. The only thing that we know for certainty is obvious.

A pretty darn meaningful showdown awaits.