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Nick Saban wants tough out of conference games and more SEC opponents
By Corey Long
Published:
Nick Saban wants the toughest schedule he can get and wouldn’t mind a few more SEC opponents as well.
The Alabama head coach spent a few minutes with Colin Cowherd on Thursday and a discussion on conference realignment quickly turned into future scheduling.
“Let me be Nick Saban for a second,” Cowherd said “Arkansas got [its] act together. Texas A&M, LSU, Georgia, Ole Miss, Auburn…and now I’ve got to face Texas and Oklahoma…I’m not going out of conference.”
Saban, however, did not agree with the idea of a stronger conference discouraging teams from playing tough out-of-conference games.
Coach Nick Saban tells @ColinCowherd the moment he knew Bryce Young was different:
“He plays the position like a point guard in basketball.” pic.twitter.com/6irOHQQ4bf
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) August 25, 2022
“I’ve always been an advocate of Power 5 schools playing Playing 5 schools,” Saban said. “I know there’s some people, especially in Division II and 1-AA, that disagree with that because we do a lot to help fund their opportunities that they give to their players on their team. But I also think that we need to be really concerned about fan interest and the more good games that we play, the more fan interest there is.”
Saban continues on about playing more SEC games and mentions how much he enjoyed playing an All-SEC schedule during the COVID year of 2020.
The Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners are planning on joining the SEC for the 2025 football season. Chris Low from ESPN.com announced last week that the SEC would prefer to go to a nine-game conference schedule when that happens.
Alabama will open its 2022 campaign against Utah State on Saturday, September 3rd. The Crimson Tide will travel to Austin to play the Longhorns the following week. Louisiana-Monroe (Sept. 17) and Austin Peay (Nov. 19) complete the non-conference schedule.
Corey Long is a freelance writer for SaturdayDownSouth.com. Follow Corey on Twitter @CoreyLong.
