Colin Cowherd on Nick Saban, Alabama playoff comments: 'Sometimes sports aren't fair'

Nick Saban spoke out about last year’s College Football Playoff standings and Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd responded.

Cowherd basically chalked it up to the life isn’t fair argument. Saban questioned, despite two losses, why Alabama wouldn’t get in because of the team’s circumstances in last-second losses.

And Saban pointed out Alabama would’ve been favored over three teams in last year’s playoff.

“So my argument would be if it’s just about who’s favored, LSU was a two touchdown underdog I think last year to Bama and won,” Cowherd said on his show Tuesday. “So college football has always been an imperfect sport … It’s an unbalanced sport. The 12-team playoff, which I was not a fan of six or seven years ago because my argument was always ‘I’ve never seen a three loss team that I think’s the best in college football.’ I still think that, but I do think if you can create sports that allow more people for a longer period of time to enjoy the sport. I think that’s good.”

Once the playoff expands, a team like the 2022 version of Alabama would easily get in.

“So I’m for the 12 team playoff, but there’s no question when it arrives, there will be a three-loss SEC team that will have far better players and probably a better team than a one-loss Cincinnati team,” Cowherd said. “There’s no question about that. There’ll be an advantage to play in the Pac-12 or the Big 12 or the ACC, no question. But the regular season has to matter. And I think about this all the time even in the NFL. The best teams do not always get to the playoffs. For instance, I think Carolina is not one of the 14 best teams in the league (but due to the division), Carolina could get into the NFL playoffs and be a fourth place team in the AFC North, a fifth place team if they played in that division … Sports isn’t necessarily fair, right? 

“Sometimes you have a schedule, your toughest two games are at home, some years your toughest two games are on the road. Alabama has been lucky through the years they’ve gotten byes right before big games. It’s almost like the SEC is helping them which they have been.”

If Alabama and Saban made the playoff based on strength of schedule and talent alone, then maybe they’d be in the playoff every year. But those two losses stood out in 2022.

“So my takeaway on this is you got to play the games for a reason,’ Cowherd said. “It won’t be entirely fair … The 12-team playoff will not change the end of college football. You’re going to be left with a top five, historic power. A USC, a Georgia, Alabama and LSU and Ohio State you’re going to be left with one of those five or six teams every year. It’ll just look differently getting to it. But there’ll be the same result. Because football is such a numbers game … 

“You know when you start playing 12, 13 games, you have to have a volume of talent. A lot of people think that college football’s playoff is going to create this new narrative and this different result. Nope. It’s going to be worse for the little guys. Because before, if a little guy got into a four-team playoff, all he had to do was win one game and you’re in the championship.”

So will Saban and Alabama’s playoff narrative change? Who knows, but there’ll be more eyes on them in 2023 should this situation come up again while the playoff is just four teams.