Nick Saban Says SEC Champion Should Be Represented In College Football Playoff

The No. 8 Alabama Crimson Tide is set to take on the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs this weekend in Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the SEC Championship.

The Bulldogs carry a 29-game winning streak into the contest and are back-to-back national champions, but in many ways their season could be over with an upset loss to the Crimson Tide.

Alabama enters with a 10-game winning streak after falling in Week 2 to the Texas Longhorns. The Crimson Tide knows the only way their season is extended in a meaningful way is by beating college football's current juggernaut.

The College Football Playoff field will be decided on Sunday and as we sit ahead of conference championship game weekend there appears to be eight schools fighting for four spots.

Can a win over the Bulldogs jump the Crimson Tide into the top four? Would Georgia be eliminated with a single loss despite its elaborate resume? Is there a chance the SEC is left out of the College Football Playoff entirely with an Alabama win?

"Well, I think, first of all, I haven't paid a lot of attention to it, because we don't really control that," Alabama head football coach Nick Saban said on The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday. "We have no control over that. We have control over how we play, how we execute, how we prepare our team and that's where our focus is. I think there should be some representation from the SEC regardless of who wins the game.

"I think this is one of the best leagues in the country and if you're a one-loss team and you played through this league, I think you're one of the best four teams in the country. So, some kind of way, there should be representation, some kind of way, because of the league itself and the competition in the league. But I don't pay a lot of attention to it because we can't control it and I don't really want our players to pay attention to it either. I want them to focus on what they have to do to play well and have a chance to be successful in this game and to have a chance to win the SEC Championship. That's the opportunity they created for themselves."

There's absolutely a world in which the SEC is left out of the College Football Playoffs due to an Alabama win eliminating Georgia. It would be the first time in playoff history the league did not have a member school in the field, but the Alabama Crimson Tide knows its only path to making the committee's job challenging is by winning on Saturday.