Legendary coach Nick Saban highlights potential issue with new College Football Playoff format

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During his storied coaching career, Nick Saban rarely shied away from an opportunity to express his thoughts about a topic related to college football.

During his latest appearance on the “Pat McAfee Show,” the seven-time national championship winning coach discussed some of the potential drawbacks of the new 12-team College Football Playoff format. 

Under the expanded playoff, the five highest-ranked conference champions will receive an automatic postseason bid. The four highest-ranked conference champions will be granted a bye for the first round. Saban suggested that the concept could result in some unintended consequences.

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Nick Saban sits on the ESPN College Gameday set prior to the NCAA football game between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Ohio State Buckeyes at Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pa. on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024.

“By giving the conference champions, when they’re not the highest-ranked teams, the bye… what it really affects is the path to the championship,” he argued.

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“And when you don’t seed the teams based on the quality of the total season performance…” he continued. “The number one seed should have, technically, the easiest path to the championship and that doesn’t really happen when you allow conference champions to get seeded in the top-four when they’re not one of the top-four teams.”

Last week’s slate of college football games featured several upsets. Alabama lost to Oklahoma, Florida upset Ole Miss, and Auburn knocked off Texas A&M. Alabama, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M will all enter the final week of the regular season with three losses. 

Sep 7, 2024; Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; Nick Saban walks off the field after it was renamed in his honor at Bryant-Denny Stadium during halftime of Alabama’s win over South Florida 42-16.  (Gary Cosby Jr.-USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images)

Saban argued against three-loss teams being rewarded by making it to the playoff. 

“I do think as we boil down to this, like right now, hard to reward a team with three losses,” Saban said. “Especially the kind of losses Ole Miss had and like Alabama’s had to pretty .500 teams I want to call them. Pretty average teams. You’ve got some other teams that maybe they didn’t play the same

competition, but they didn’t lose games to average teams either.”

Alabama head coach Nick Saban speaks during NCAA college football Southeastern Conference Media Days Tuesday, July 19, 2022, in Atlanta.  (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

From Saban’s point of view, the Georgia Bulldogs are the only potential three-loss team that should be in line for serious playoff consideration. Georgia enters their annual in-state rivalry showdown with Georgia Tech on Nov. 29 with two losses.

The Bulldogs are then scheduled to play the winner of this weekend’s Texas-Texas A&M game in the SEC Championship game in Atlanta. If Georgia drops that game, Saban does not believe they should be eliminated from playoff contention.

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“If Georgia actually plays in the SEC Championship Game, they really shouldn’t be penalized if they should happen to lose the game,” Saban said. “They would end up with three losses. I don’t think a team that didn’t play in the championship game that has two losses should get in, especially if they played a good game and it wasn’t a blowout.”

Oregon remained in the top spot in the latest playoff rankings, with Ohio State, Texas, Penn State, and Notre Dame rounding out the top-5.

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