Nick Saban believes the College Football Playoff Committee got its first ever 12-team field correct, but the former coach believes there could be one significant consequence of the new format.
After the official College Football Playoff bracket was unveiled on Sunday, Saban said during an appearance on ESPN that he is concerned about strength of schedule not holding enough weight. Saban cautioned that teams might be less motivated to schedule quality non-conference opponents.
“I think one of the things I’ve mentioned throughout this football season is if you don’t take strength of schedule into consideration, is there any benefit to scheduling really good teams in the future?” Saban asked. “Here at Alabama, we’re supposed to play Notre Dame, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Florida State in the future outside the (SEC). Those are great games for fans to see, and that’s what I think we should be doing in college football is creating more good inventory for great games that people are interested in. But do you enhance people wanting to do that, or what’s the athletic director gonna do? He may go cancel all those games now knowing that the SEC is tough enough.”
Alabama did not make the College Football Playoff after finishing with three losses. All of the losses were against SEC opponents, and Saban had already said he did not think his former team deserved to get in.
Saban’s point, however, is that teams might schedule more cupcake non-conference opponents so there is less risk of losing a game.
Saban had previously shared another consequence he believes the expanded College Football Playoff could have.
