On Thursday, former Alabama coach turned college football analyst Nick Saban decided to critique this year’s College Football Playoffs lineup, and it came out as expected.
While speaking with Pat McAfee on his show, Saban, a true Group of Six (G6) hater, ripped the committee for selecting G6 teams Tulane and James Madison over Notre Dame and belittled them in the process.
“Would we allow the winner of the Triple-A baseball league – the International League, I don’t even know the name of it – would you let them in the World Series? That’s the equivalent of what we do when JMU gets in the Playoff, and Notre Dame doesn’t,” railed Saban.
Now, Saban is partially correct as Notre Dame should have been in based on the rankings leading into the final week of the season.
Yet Saban, a college football traditionalist and one of the greatest coaches in the sport’s history, could have made his point without continuing his hate for G6 programs.
Despite starting his head coaching career in 1990 at G6 Toledo, he understandably favors P4 teams after leading three different programs (Michigan St., LSU and Alabama).
He also fears them in a way as G6 teams have become risky for P4 teams to play for they’re good, many of them getting better thanks to more exposure and recruiting.
Boise St. has been a rankings mainstay despite playing in smaller conferences like the WAC and the Mountain West.
SMU has risen from the ashes of the 1987 “death penalty”, moved from C-USA to the AAC and now competes in the ACC, where it made the CFP last season and upset CFP-bound Miami this season.
And James Madison, while not a traditional powerhouse, moved from FCS to FBS in 2022 by joining the Sun Belt Conference and won the Conference Championship this season.
So while these types of teams aren’t “blue bloods”, comparing them to Triple A minor league baseball teams is wrong.
But disrespecting programs to benefit his agenda isn’t new for Saban.
Three years ago, after losing the recruiting title to Texas A&M, a salty Saban accused the Aggies of buying “every player on their team.”
He then took aim at Deion Sanders, head coach at Jackson St. at the time, accusing him of paying Travis Hunter $1 million to play for the Tigers instead of Florida St.
Then, after months of ripping his opponents, opposing coaches and the system, Alabama rewarded him with a new one-year extension that bumped his salary from $9.5 million to $10.7 million, keeping him just ahead Georgia’s Kirby Smart ($10.25 million) as college football’s highest paid coach (Smart regained the salary throne after Saban retired in 2024).
Yet no one insulted him for receiving his massive pay day. Why? Because he earned it based on his success.
Similarly, Tulane and JMU were successful and deserved their shots instead of the shade they’ve received.
It seems that whenever Saban wants his way, he attacks with disrespect.
Last season, after the 9-3 Tide were left out of the CFP in favor of 11-2 SMU, he raged again.
“If we don’t take strength of schedule into consideration, is there any benefit to scheduling really good teams in the future?” said Saban, conveniently ignoring the fact that Alabama had three losses, two of which were to unranked Oklahoma and Vanderbilt (SMU’s only losses were to ACC Champions Clemson and 17th ranked BYU).
While Tulane and JMU are predicted to lose to Ole Miss and Oregon, respectively, this weekend, they deserve the opportunity to compete, something which the business of college football is unapologetically trying to sacrifice in the name of TV ratings.
But the real fear is that by giving G6 programs a chance to play, and possibly beat, P4 programs while getting national exposure, the traditional powerhouses will lose their monopoly on recruiting and the lucrative finances of college football and the College Football Playoffs.
And one of the biggest proponents of this sacrificial practice is Saban, who emphatically wants the G6 to have its own playoff system.
“These guys ought to have their own playoff,” said Saban. “Just give them the money. Each school gets $4 million for playing the first round. Just give them $4 million and put Notre Dame in.”
That’s something I agree with Saban on and something I wrote about over two years ago in this story.
But while we agree on this, our reasons differ.
I want it because G6 programs deserve their own playoffs that all teams can benefit from.
Saban wants it simply because he’s a G6 hater.
