Alabama coach Nick Saban: Pace of play rule needs closer look

Alabama head coach Nick Saban has won three of the last five national championships. (Ronald C. Modra/Getty Images)

Alabama head coach Nick Saban says the rule about the pace of play in college football that is scheduled to be voted on Thursday needs to get a closer look.

The NCAA's Playing Rules Oversight Panel has a proposal on the table that would penalize teams for hiking the ball with more than 30 seconds on the 40-second game clock.

"I don't care about getting blamed for this. That's part of it," Saban told ESPN.com. "But I do think that somebody needs to look at this very closely."

Saban has said that he would like to see the game officials rather than the offenses dictate the pace of the game and wouldn't be opposed to college football no longer stopping the clock after each first down.

"The fastball guys (up-tempo coaches) say there's no data out there, and I guess you have to use some logic. What's the logic? If you smoke one cigarette, do you have the same chances of getting cancer if you smoke 20? I guess there's no study that specifically says that. But logically, we would say, 'Yeah, there probably is.'"

ELLIS: NCAA considering direct student-athlete input, autonomy for major conferences