College Football Playoff: 12-team bracket leads to fired up Nick Saban reaction

Nick Saban was first on the microphone when ESPN revealed SMU was the final team in the College Football Playoff over Alabama.

Saban didn’t necessarily question the decision, but did question what the committee is ultimately going to value moving forward. It comes down to who you play and the strength of schedule.

In this scenario, Alabama’s strength of schedule was argued as better than SMU’s.

“Well, I think one of the things that I’ve mentioned, you know, throughout this football season is, if we don’t take strength of schedule into consideration, is there any benefit to scheduling really good teams in the future,” Saban said on the CFP reveal show. “Like, you know, here at Alabama, we’re supposed to play Notre Dame, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Florida State, in the future, outside the league. Well, those are great games for fans to see, and that’s what I think we should be doing. You know, in college football, it’s creating more good inventory for great games that people are interested in, but do you enhance people wanting to do that?

“What’s the athletic director going to do? He may go cancel all those games now, knowing that the SEC is tough enough, but at the same time, I do think the best teams are in the playoff, which I think is most important.”

The full CFP bracket can be viewed HERE. There were arguments from teams left out such as Alabama. The others included Ole Miss, Miami and South Carolina.

However, to get to the playoff, you have to win your games.

“No coach should have any complaint about his circumstances relative to getting in the playoffs or out of the playoffs, because they all controlled their own destiny,” Saban said. “And they all had opportunities, and they had some flaws and bad losses that contributed to their circumstances. So this could be a learning lesson for each and every team and every individual on those teams.”

The SEC was the loudest in terms of arguing strength of schedule. As far as the conference is concerned, it landed three teams in this year’s College Football Playoff: Georgia, Texas and Tennessee.

The good news is, strength of schedule could very well be thrown out the window when it comes to the actual playoff games on the field.