Nick Saban isn’t thrilled about where the College Football Playoff could be headed.
After ESPN reported the playoff is expected to expand to 24 teams in 2027, Saban said his biggest concern is the toll it could take on players if the format keeps piling on games.
“Well, first of all, I really didn’t retire because college football was changing,” Saban said on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “We always wanted to help players be more successful in life.
That became a little more difficult with NIL and players getting paid, which I think they deserved, and I was happy for them to be able to do it. It just changed the whole game in terms of transfer portal guys, how much they’re getting paid, how does that affect their ability to work on the things they need to do to develop personally, academically, and athletically.
I think those are all questions that we want to make sure that in college we keep education first and development first. And make the quality of life better and find a balance in all that and a competitive balance in all that.
But the 24 team playoff is my only concern about the 24 team playoff is I understand the more teams you get involved, the more interest it creates and more opportunity, the more hope that it creates for players. But the one thing that I am concerned about, because we played 15 games three or four times .
And that was a lot of games for college players. Now we’re talking about in a 24-team playoff, you could play five more games and the 12 games and what happens with championship games and how we eliminate those.
And I just get a little concerned about how much is too much when it comes to how many games a college player plays.”
Saban said he would prefer a smaller jump from the current setup, backing a move to 16 teams instead.
“I would be for 16,” Saban said. “I think that would be a good compromise.
I would be for keeping conference championship games as maybe a play-in to the 16, which now you’d have 20 teams that had hope. But I don’t think there’s much support for that.
I don’t think anybody really likes that.”
For now, the 12-team playoff is still locked in for the 2026-2027 season.
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