Nick Saban Lays Out Idea for Competitive Scheduling in College Football

The Alabama coach previously said competitive balance was one of his biggest concerns when it came to realignment in college football.

In a one-on-one interview with 247Sports’s Josh Pate of The Late Kick With Josh Pate during SEC Media Days, Alabama coach Nick Saban touched on the lack of competitive games in college football and offered a solution. 

“I coached in the NFL for eight years, we’ve got 32 teams and every rule in the NFL creates competitive balance,” Saban told Josh Pate, per 247Sports. “Salary cap. If you have a good season, you play a more difficult schedule. Everything they do is they try to create everybody 8–8 in the NFL. If everybody’s 8–8, there is going to be fan interest to see who gets in the playoffs. But when you have teams going 13–3 and don’t even play the best players at the end of the season because they’re saving them for the playoffs, how much fan interest does that create?

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“We need to respect fans and traditions, and the integrity of those traditions,” he continued. “To play quality games is the most important thing, but our rules don’t enhance us playing quality games because you’ve got to have a winning record to get in a bowl game. Why don’t we do it like basketball, have a ratings systems [and] even if you went 5–7 but played a really good schedule and played some pretty good teams, you can go to a bowl game.”

Saban echoed his comments on the Always College Football podcast from last week where he said “competitive balance” is his biggest concern when it comes to realignment. During the previous interview, he harped on the issue of there being less rivalry games if teams continue to leave conferences for another. His comments came in the wake of both USC and UCLA announcing their plans to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. 

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