Alabama will play for its third national championship in the past four years on Jan. 7 in the Discover BCS National Championship, and the Crimson Tide were also the top SEC team in the "Academic BCS."

Alabama finished No. 7 in the New America Foundation’s annual academic performance rankings of all Top 25 teams. The foundation uses not only graduation rates and NCAA APR scores, but also such data as a team's graduation rate compared to the overall male student body, how a team’s graduation gap between black and white players compares to the general student body and the graduation rate for black players versus that of black male students in general.

In the final BCS standings that were released on Dec. 2, the SEC had six of the top 10 teams. In the "Academic BCS," the SEC had just two top 10 teams. In addition to Alabama, Georgia was No. 10.

Rounding out the SEC teams were LSU at No. 11, Texas A&M at No. 14, Florida at No. 15 and South Carolina at No. 19.

The New America Foundation study tracked only those teams finishing in the Top 25 of the BCS standings, so the other SEC teams weren't included.