Fans outside the SEC footprint often like to poke fun of the cupcake games some of the league’s teams annually face. For example, prior to last season’s game against Auburn, Alabama faced off against Mercer.  The coming season will be no different, as the Crimson Tide face the Citadel before the Iron Bowl.

Those games essentially serve as a glorified bye weeks before season-defining games. They exist for no reason other than the visiting team to collect a paycheck and for Alabama to provide some rest to its starters before the upcoming game. While Nick Saban would never say it quite like that, he agrees that in an ideal world, those games would not be on Alabama’s schedule.

According to Saban, he would like to see Alabama play only Power 5 opponents and more SEC games each season. His comments came after he was asked about Alabama’s selection in the previous College Football Playoff over Ohio State. The way Saban sees it, it’s very difficult to compare college football programs based on the current format, which varies from league to league.

“I think College Five (Power Five) conference teams should play all College Five conference teams. You know, and we should play more conference games,” Saban said in an interview with George Schroeder of USA TODAY Sports. “Then to me, losing two games wouldn’t knock you out of this, because you’d be playing more good teams. You can barely have a bad game in college football and survive it. And if you have it late in the season like we did it seems to have more significance in terms of how people feel about it than if you lose games earlier.”

It’s Saban’s belief that the reason more coaches don’t support a system like that is simple — they want wins to ensure they have job security. It’s a good point and one that Saban doesn’t have to deal with considering his mountain of accomplishments in Tuscaloosa. He may feel differently if he was a rising up-and-comer in the college football world but he does argue that in that system, losing a game or two wouldn’t necessarily kill you like it does in the current system.

“But a lot of the reason people don’t want to do a stronger schedule is, a lot of people worry about can we win six games and be bowl-eligible? So my answer to that is, why don’t you pick the teams to go to bowl games just like they pick the teams that get into the NCAA basketball tournament? You know, rank ’em and it’s not about your record,” Saban continued. “It’s a little bit about your RPI or however they figure it out. And pick the best teams that way.”

It’s an interesting conversation to be sure but would college football benefit from having its best teams drop two or more games a season? One of the major aspects college football has over the NFL is the do-or-die nature that the majority of regular season games currently have. Ohio State didn’t show up last season against Iowa and it cost them a shot at the Playoff.

Saban’s idea would likely make it easier for the Playoff Committee to make its annual selections but until more coaches and administrators place a higher priority on making an even playing field over their own job security, it’s unlikely to happen.