Alabama football coach Nick Saban has no interest in seeing the playoff expand.
The seven-time national champion hasn’t made it a secret that he’s against expansion, but the field growing seems inevitable at this point. Despite the fact that Saban might not have the power to stop expansion, he damn sure wants people to know he thinks it’s a bad idea. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
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The legendary coach said the following during a recent interview with Paul Finebaum, according to 247Sports:
I think the playoff, as I said many years ago when we had just two teams in the playoff and expanded to four, that the more playoffs we have the less significant bowl games are going to be. It’s really not for me, and I don’t even think I’m capable of judging how significant the positive self-gratification that players, programs, and coaches get from being able to go to a bowl game. Now, everything has shifted to the four teams in the playoffs, and the bowls seem to be pretty insignificant. I think if we expand the playoff, you’re going to see a continuation of that trend where the bowl games become less and less significant. Maybe these things can’t coexist. If they’re going to coexist, maybe we should try to leave them pretty much the same.
I understand where Saban is coming from, but I just think he’s wrong. Should the playoff expand to 12 or 16 teams?
Absolutely not. Expand the field to eight and let’s roll. With eight teams in the playoff, the other major bowl games will still be important and the playoff will draw even more interest.
At this point, it also really doesn’t matter what Nick Saban or anyone else thinks because expansion is 100% going to happen.
Why? It’s very simple at the end of the day. Money drives the decision making in college football, and the bigger the playoff, the more money there is for everyone involved.
That’s pretty much the beginning, middle and end of the story when it comes to expansion.
It’s going to expand, and I hope eight teams is the final decision. That’d be perfect.