Nick Saban has responded to critics of Alabama’s schedule.
The Crimson Tide play Duke (at a neutral site) and host New Mexico State, Southern Mississippi, and Western Carolina for their four non-conference games this season. That has led to criticism that they are playing too soft a schedule.
During an appearance Friday on “Golic and Wingo,” Saban shared his side. The Crimson Tide coach says he has long advocated for Power 5 teams to only play each other. He also says the reason they struggle to schedule strong non-conference opponents is because teams don’t want to play them. Further, he says they end up playing neutral site games because that’s the only way some teams will agree to face them.
“We tried. That’s all I can say… and we try every year.”
– Nick Saban on finding quality out of conference opponents to schedule… pic.twitter.com/bcBq7OHkA5
— Golic and Wingo (@GolicAndWingo) July 26, 2019
“I think the culture of college football would benefit if we said Power 5 teams have to play all Power 5 teams. I’ve been an advocate of this for several years,” Saban said during an appearance on ESPN’s Golic and Wingo show. “I’ve been an advocate of playing more SEC games. Well, I think you should do it like basketball, they have RPI, or whatever it’s called. And basketball says these are the teams that played the best schedule and won the biggest games. So that’s how you qualify for a bowl game, not how many games you win. So that it would be better for fans, it would be better for fan interest.
“So we’ve tried to schedule two opponents — Power Five opponents — every year. We have one time in the next 10 years where we’ve succeeded at doing that because we can’t get the games. So unless we change the culture of how we all agree to schedule, I don’t think that’s going to happen. One of the reasons why we’ve played all these neutral site games is because it’s the only way we can get a quality opponent.”
Saban also says people ask why they don’t play more teams that are highly-ranked, and he said “we try. We try every year.”
The way college football is set up does not reward teams for going out and losing to Alabama, so the risk of a likely loss is not worth it for teams to play the Tide. Conversely, sports that are based on RPI, which measures strength of schedule, rewards facing tougher opponents. Saban believes this system would be better for the sport.
Saban acknowledged that the games against some non-conference opponents are not what the fans would prefer, but that still hasn’t stopped him from being critical of them many times over the years.
