Ad Disclosure
Nick Saban offers constructive criticism for College Football Playoff format
Published:
Nick Saban never had to put up with the current College Football Playoff format. The legendary head coach retired in January, well ahead of the 2024 season when the inaugural 12-team Playoff was set to take flight.
But this hardly means Saban is removed from what we have now in college football. He’s an analyst for ESPN, so now he’s paid to give his opinion on all things college football, including the new Playoff format that gives the best 4 conference champions the top 4 seeds and a first-round bye.
This is all so very wrong, said Saban on Friday’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show.
“I think we have less of a chance based on the way they seeded the teams of getting the best four teams in the final four than we did when we just picked four teams,” said Nick Saban. “We awarded conference champs, and we should reward them by putting them in the tournament. But they should be ranked relative to the quality of team they have relative to everyone else. Then you’d have more good games, I think, and a fairer tournament when you get down the road to the semifinals and finals.”
And what about top-seeded Oregon playing No. 8 seed Ohio State in a power-packed quarterfinal that hardly seems like it should be a quarterfinal? Saban doesn’t like that, either, believing those 2 teams shouldn’t be playing in the round of 8.
For now, this is what we have, and people like Saban are free to give their beliefs and suggestions for how this whole thing should evolve in the seasons to come.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
