Nick Saban has the right idea. Just the wrong solution.

Saban wants a better schedule filled with more conference games, more competitive non-conference games. He wants a few more Power 5 vs. Power 5 clashes. He wants a better Final Four.

Don’t we all.

The problem with Saban’s proposal is he doesn’t want nearly enough Power 5 mingling.

Despite a century of trying and tweaking, college football has never figured out how to crown a champion. There’s no need to bore everybody with a history lesson — every Alabama fan (and Auburn) knows that the Tide claims a national championship despite losing a bowl game. That’s like, well, nothing else in sports history, except for the previous times it happened in college football.

The BCS system wasn’t much better than the flawed system it replaced. It still picked two teams based on unspecified and changing criteria, without nearly enough interaction between the primary contenders.

The most ridiculous drama in BCS history came in 2006, when Michigan and Ohio State entered their annual showdown ranked No. 1 and 2. Ohio State won 42-39, and immediately there were calls for a rematch in the BCS Championship Game.

Fortunately that was averted, but just barely. Florida squeaked past Michigan by one-hundredth of a point in the final BCS ranking. The on-field results that followed were much more lopsided.

Not only did Florida destroy No. 1 Ohio State 41-14 for the national championship, USC pummeled No. 3 Michigan 32-18 in the Rose Bowl. The two best Big Ten teams, the two teams AP voters had No. 1 and No. 2 for five consecutive weeks because nobody else in the Big Ten could challenge them, were outscored 73-32 in their biggest games.

Perception drove that narrative for a rematch and almost led to disaster. Ohio State and Michigan both had one impressive early-season victory over a ranked non-conference opponent before padding their resume with Big Ten cupcakes.

The four-team Playoff was a clear step in the right direction, adding two more teams to the championship chase. But like Saban’s suggestion, it isn’t enough. Eventually we will get eight teams — the five automatic Power 5 champions and three deserving at-large teams.

Until then, the same basic problem exists now as did in 2006: There is no way to accurately compare one Power 5 conference with another because the sample size is way too small. And whether it’s the Big Ten already playing nine conference games or Saban suggesting the SEC play 10, that line of thinking is the worst thing that could happen to college football.

We already have more than enough games, including conference championship games, to determine the best team in a particular conference. That’s not the problem. We’re great at that, primarily because players decide it, not computers or analysts.

Adding conference games would exacerbate the situation and ignore the flies in the soup bowl.

What we need are more Power 5 vs. Power 5 games so we can accurately determine who are the best four leagues in the country.

Already, we allow a conference to control its message by almost exclusively playing one another. Nobody executes this better than the Big Ten, of course, which sets us up for an Ohio State-Michigan End of the World tussle almost every season, and then asks for more based primarily on the fact those teams typically have dominated lesser Big Ten opponents all season.

Last year was more of the same narrative-driven nonsense. Many analysts openly campaigned for two Big Ten teams to make the Playoff. This, despite the fact Michigan State was shut out in the 2015 Playoff and Ohio State was just about to be shut out in the 2016 Playoff.

The reason? The Big Ten, by virtue of its scheduling, was able to control its message. My goodness, Kirk Herbstreit had Ohio State at an unmovable No. 2 in his Playoff poll even though Ohio State didn’t make its conference championship game. Joey Galloway not only liked Ohio State but said Penn State was more deserving than Washington.

But all we could do was SMH because Ohio State never played an SEC, Pac-12 or ACC team. The Buckeyes’ lone victory over a non-conference Power 5 school, in September, no less, was supposed to erase all questions about what some of us actually saw on the field. Penn State, which actually beat Ohio State and won the Big Ten, lost its only non-conference game against a Power 5 opponent.

That lack of opportunity for other Power 5 leagues to play the Big Ten is a huge issue. Fortunately, it’s also a fixable one.

The solution to college football’s biggest problem — determining which four teams are selected for the Playoff — is reducing the number of conference games each team plays and forcing every Power 5 team to play one Power 5 team from each of the other four leagues.

“There’s not enough games of interconference play to help judge how you’re rating each league,” FSU coach Jimbo Fisher told reporters last week. “We get caught up in ‘that league’s the best league this year.’ For instance, last year it was Big Ten, Big Ten. All of a sudden the ACC spanks them to death in bowl games, major games, big games. But maybe during that time of the year, (the Big Ten) was better. I think they do have a hard job because of only picking four teams.”

As Fisher noted, you have to allow every other Power 5 conference the opportunity to challenge your conference’s reputation. Why guess which league is superior, when there is a way to reveal the answer organically.

The scheduling aspect is easy: seven conference games, four vs. the other four Power 5 leagues, and one vs. the Group of 5 or in-state FCS teams that so desperately rely on that annual subsidy. Add Notre Dame and rotate to account for the Big 12 and Pac-12 having fewer teams. It’s beyond doable. It’s necessary. It’s time.

Power 5 division champs are rewarded with a trip to the conference championship game. With five leagues competing for four Playoff spots, somebody is staying home. With an exponentially larger sample size, the Playoff committee would be better able to determine which conference truly is the strongest — or more important, the weakest — based on results rather than former Big Ten players saying so on ESPN. And the little guys Saban wants to kick to the curb get the money they need to keep going.

That way, everybody wins. Or at least has a better chance to.