Nick Saban calls for changes to College Football Playoff selection process

Alabama didn’t make the College Football Playoff as a three-loss team last season. Months later, those affiliated with the Crimson Tide and the SEC are still talking about it.

Former UA head coach Nick Saban wasn’t asked about the snub on Tuesday, while speaking to reporters at a luncheon for the Nick’s Kids Foundation in Tuscaloosa. Still, when answering a question about which teams had a chance to win the SEC, Saban got a reference in.

”It gets to be a little bit of a disadvantage, because you get penalized for losses more in college football than you (are rewarded) for strength of schedule," Saban said. “Which was unfortunate for Alabama last year in terms of getting in the playoffs. But hopefully we’ll get that fixed and work together to try to do it in the future, so that strength of schedule becomes an important part of how you get selected to get in the playoffs. And you shouldn’t get penalized for playing in a championship. So hopefully all those things will come to fruition.”

Alabama lost three games in the regular season, against Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma. The Crimson Tide missed the field of 12 by one spot, behind SMU, which lost one regular season matchup, plus the ACC championship game.

UA went on to lose the ReliaQuest Bowl to a depleted Michigan team. Still, the argument that the Tide should have made the CFP has persisted.

Since then, the SEC has pushed for strength of schedule to be rewarded more in the playoff selection process. The Alabama snub contributed to a lack of support for the league moving to nine conference games going forward.

The league even distributed literature to reporters at SEC spring meetings entitled “A Regular Season Gauntlet” in May.

“You can’t just run down a College Football Playoff selection idea without thinking about, ‘Well if we play eight or nine games, what are the impacts?’” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said. “So that’s the depth of analysis. We also look at, and we’ll go through this tomorrow, whether people want to agree with it or not, that’s up to them, we can go through the analytics and how the rigor of our schedule is different than anyone else’s, period.”

Alabama is in the midst of preseason camp ahead of the 2025 season, the Tide’s second since Saban’s retirement. UA is scheduled to open the season on Aug. 30, with a trip to Florida State.