Nick Saban jabs Pat McAfee over Big Ten love during defense of the SEC

With just three weekends of college football action remaining in the regular season, the 2025 College Football Playoff field is just beginning to round into form. For the SEC, which has has half of its league currently ranked in the latest CFP Top 25 poll, this year’s 12-team Playoff is poised to feature a significant number of conference programs after only managing three last season.

Of course, that reality is unlikely to sit all that well with fans of the other Power Four conferences, specifically those in the Big Ten and Big 12, which could see several of their own Playoff contenders lose out on potential bids in favor of SEC programs. That was certainly the case last year, albeit flipped, when SEC leaders complained after the Big Ten received a NCAA-leading four bids in the 2024 field.

The Big Ten-SEC rivalry for conference supremacy was on full display during Friday’s episode of The Pat McAfee Show, when former Alabama coach-turned-ESPN College GameDay analyst Nick Saban didn’t miss an opportunity to playfully call out the show’s popular host over his deference to the Big Ten.

Nick Saban playfully refers to Pat McAfee as ‘Mr. Big Ten over here’ on Friday’s show

“When you’re got seven teams in the Top 15 – which you don’t want to admit the SEC is worth a damn, aight – they’ve got to play each other, for Mr. Big Ten (Pat McAfee) over here,” Saban joked during a discussion about the challenging road ahead for several of the SEC’s serious Playoff contenders.

“And the Big 12,” McAfee, a West Virginia alum, said, taking Saban’s needling in stride.

“(But) somebody’s got to lose,” Saban continued. “So, somebody’s going to end up with three losses and they’re not going to be able to get into the Playoffs, but yet they may be a better team than some of the teams that get into the Playoff.”

Saban was likely referring to No. 10 Texas (7-2, 4-1 SEC), which has two serious opportunities over the final three weekends to impress the Playoff committee by upsetting a current Top 5 team. That includes this Saturday night’s game in Athens, where the Longhorns face No. 5 Georgia (8-1, 6-1 SEC) in a much-anticipated Top 10 showdown. Win or lose this weekend, Texas — which salvaged a promising season that was derailed by a season-opening road loss to now-No. 1 Ohio State — ends the regular season with a home game against No. 3 Texas A&M (9-1, 6-1 SEC) in another high-stakes game with Playoff implications.

Of course, the SEC also has No. 7 Ole Miss (9-1, 5-1 SEC), No. 11 Oklahoma (7-2, 3-2 SEC) and No. 14 Vanderbilt (8-2, 4-2 SEC) in contention, with only the Rebels currently projected to make the Playoff’s 12-team field. The Sooners play in Tuscaloosa this Saturday against the fourth-ranked Crimson Tide, whose ’24 Playoff hopes were spoiled last year following a 24-3 road loss in Norman. The upstart Commodores, meanwhile, will likely need to win out to secure their program’s first-ever Playoff bid.