Nick Saban takes issue with proposed College Football Playoff expansion

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Alabama head coach Nick Saban didn’t quite vouch for an expanded College Football Playoff field. After all, the Crimson Tide is rarely on the outside looking in of the four-team bracket.

Ever since the College Football Playoff model succeeded the BCS national championship in 2014, the four-team field has created debate as to whether the model needs change. Many are vouching for an expanded 12-team field, and given recent developments, that adjustment seems just around the corner.

Meanwhile, Saban and Georgia head coach Kirby Smart combined to teach a masterclass in College Football Playoff conflict this past weekend: No. 1 Alabama dominated No. 4 Cincinnati, 27-6, and No. 3 Georgia blew out No. 4 Michigan, 34-11, leading to a SEC Championship Game rematch next week. Meanwhile, other New Years Six bowl games — which consist of teams that just barely made the cut for the College Football Playoff — were as competitive as can be.

But Saban questions the theory that expanding that field will make the College Football Playoff any more exciting. It certainly won’t make the games any closer, he thinks.

“It was a really hard-fought game for us, I think, and we have a tremendous amount of respect for the team that we played,” Saban said Monday of Alabama’s win over Cincinnati. “I don’t know that expanding — if this is the best four teams and they played each other, I don’t see the logic in it if we had more teams there would be better games. I don’t know how that adds up.”

Maybe Saban has a point. If the two College Football Playoff semifinal games on Friday were blowouts, inviting lower-ranked teams to the mix might not make the results any closer. However, he failed to consider the first-round games between lower seeds, which would certainly generate excitement. This past week proved just that: No. 10 Michigan State came back from a 21-10 deficit to beat No. 12 Pitt, 31-21, in the Peach Bowl; No. 9 Oklahoma State pulled off the greatest comeback in program history to beat No. 5 Notre Dame, 37-35, in the Fiesta Bowl; No. 6 Ohio State used Jaxson Smith-Njigba’s 347 receiving yards and three touchdowns to pull off a 48-45 win over No. 11 Utah in an instant-classic Rose Bowl; and No. 7 Baylor managed to sneak past No. 8 Ole Miss, 21-7, in a terrific defensive Sugar Bowl.

Those games were a thrill to watch. Saban’s dominance over Cincinnati, on the other hand, was a lot less fun.

“There’s a lot of other good teams, whether it was their consistency in performance or whatever happened to them in championship games or whatever, that may have had the opportunity to get in the playoffs that didn’t,” Saban said. “I’m not the one that needs to be deciding what the playoff needs to be. There’s a lot of good people out there that can make a decision as to what’s best for college football.”

The current model serves to the advantage of powerhouse programs like Alabama. If the College Football Playoff were to expand, though, new teams would be granted the opportunity every year. Saban on Monday couldn’t help but worry how that might impact the current bowl model.

“The more we expand the playoffs, the more we minimize bowl games, the importance of bowl games, which I said when we went to four,” Saban said. “So I don’t think that’s changed. And I think it’s also come to fruition.”