The College Football Playoff debates are flying hot and heavy as we roll into the final weekend of the 2024 regular season.
Despite the playoff field expanding from four to 12 teams, there will be those who feel like they were snubbed the opportunity to play for a national title.
After latest CFP rankings were released on Tuesday night, the debate started around some of the first teams projected to be left out of the field of 12. As it turns out, the teams ranked from 13 to 15 were all members of the SEC: No. 13 Alabama, No. 14 Ole Miss, and No. 15 South Carolina.
There have been times during the seasons when both Alabama and Ole Miss were viewed as the best team in the country, but with three losses, there’s a very good chance that neither of them will crack the Field of 12.
Former Alabama head coach and ESPN college football analyst Nick Saban explains why he thinks this issue will persist, no matter what the format looks like — as long as there is a difference in the level of competition among conferences.
“The subjective part of this that you can never fix is the conferences are not equal. They’re not equal in depth of good teams, nor are they equal in the quality of the best teams,” Saban said on the Pat McAfee Show.
“So, to give you an example, let’s just take Ole Miss, so I stay away from this whole Alabama thing. So, if Ole Miss played in the Big 12, what would their record be? That’s the kind of subjective issues that we have in college football that are never going to change unless we take the best 40 teams in college football and put them in a league, very similar to the 32 teams that are in the NFL, and then the competition level is probably going to be more equal.”
Saban then shared his thoughts on how the scheduling component of college football should change, using Alabama recently playing Mercer as an example.
“I’ve always said that nobody should play Mercer,” Saban continued. “Nobody should play a I-AA school. Everybody should have to play the top 40 teams, and then you would have a better idea of who are the best teams.”
Then to the surprise of some, Saban explains why he doesn’t believe that neither Alabama or Ole Miss should get into the field this season.
“Consistency and performance mean something. In Ole Miss and Alabama’s case, they didn’t have consistency and performance. They lost to teams they probably shouldn’t have lost to, so there should be a penalty for that as well.”
