When the College Football Playoff selection committee announced its 12-team field earlier this month, Nick Saban reacted on ESPN in part by saying, “I do think the best teams are in the playoff, which I think is most important.”
After watching the CFP’s inaugural first-round games — lopsided wins by Penn State over SMU, Notre Dame over Indiana, Texas over Clemson and Ohio State over Tennessee — Saban has a different take.
“I thought there was some good games, but I also thought there was some evidence that there may have been three or four better teams that they could have put in the playoffs, I guess, was my take from it,” Saban said Friday on the Pat McAfee Show.
The first four teams out of the playoff field were Alabama (9-3), Miami (10-2), Ole Miss (9-3) and South Carolina (9-3).
Saban has a suggestion for how the CFP selection committee could better pick teams.
“I think one of the things the committee could do is … in the old days, when the Sugar Bowl wanted to see if they were gonna pick you, or the Orange Bowl, or the Rose Bowl, or the Fiesta Bowl or whatever — they would come watch you play,” Saban said. “So at least they could eye-ball the team and see what kind of team, what you look like on the hoof — especially in the line positions, because those are critical match-ups. And then they would decide how good the teams were based on that.
“But you got to get out of the conference room to be able to do that. I think that would helpful in the future — less emphasis on how many wins and more emphasis on who you beat.”
Representatives from bowl games often watch games from the press box throughout the season. That was the case for several Alabama games this season, including the Iron Bowl when Citrus Bowl representatives came to Bryant-Denny Stadium — and ultimately passed over the Tide for South Carolina. But the 13-person College Football Playoff selection committee watches late-season games together on television from a conference room in Grapevine, Texas.
Saban on Friday also reiterated his position that conference champions should not automatically receive top-four seeds and first-round byes.
“If you look ahead to what’s happening now, which is the next round of the playoffs, 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,” Saban said. “Because Oregon and Ohio State are probably one of the best four teams in the country and they’re gonna play each other in the round of eight rather than in the semifinals, and that was all because we awarded conference champs byes.
“They should be rewarded by putting them in the tournament, but they should get ranked relative to the quality of team they have relative to everybody else. Then you would have more good games, I think, and a fairer tournament when you get down the road to the semifinals and the finals.”
Saban said at SEC media days in July that there should be no automatic qualifiers for conference champions and simply the committee’s top-12 ranked teams should make the field.
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