Nick Saban excited for Alabama's opportunity to play in Sugar Bowl

It was announced Sunday that No. 5 Alabama will square off against No. 9 Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl, one of six New Year’s Six matchups featured this college football bowl season. It’s no secret that head coach Nick Saban and his program have aspirations and expectations of making the College Football Playoff every single season in order to compete for a National Championship, which he spoke about this week.

“Well obviously there’s going to be some disappointment that we didn’t get in the playoffs, but we sort of had a season that was a little bit up and down for us, we finished strong,” Saban said.

Despite being one spot shy of making the playoffs following the final College Football Playoff rankings, Saban is still excited for his team to compete in one of the most storied bowl games in all of college football, that’s been played annually since 1935.

“Hopefully we can do a great job of embracing the challenge that we have playing in a classic to me when you talk about the Sugar Bowl and how exciting it is to be a part of it,” Saban said. “And that our players will embrace that and want to go do a great job both having the opportunity to prove who they are as a team.”

The Sugar Bowl is tied with Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl as the second-oldest bowl games in the country, and one that the Crimson Tide are familiar with making 16 appearances. With Alabama only losing two games this season by a total of four total points against two top 25 opponents on the road, they feel that they should’ve had a chance to play in the playoffs, but can now prove in this game that they belonged with a dominant performance.

“We’re looking forward to it, it’s exciting, it’s a challenge for us to sort of prove against a really really good team what kind of team we really are and I think our players will be excited about the challenge,” Saban said. “It’s certainly an honor for us to be in the Sugar Bowl.”

Saban and his team will be facing the Big 12 conference champions in this matchup, fresh off of a thrilling, overtime victory over the No. 3 ranked TCU. Kansas State has won their last four games behind the heroics of backup quarterback Will Howard, as the two teams will square off in an exciting matchup on December 31 in the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.