Saban proposes all-Power 5 schedules to improve CFP

Nick Saban has an idea on how the regular season and college football playoff should be amended, and when Nick Saban speaks, people tend to listen.

Alabama's legendary head coach spoke to Heather Dinich of ESPN on Wednesday and expressed various ideas on how to increase the quality of games throughout the year. One of those ideas is to eliminate the scheduling of opponents outside of the Power 5.

"We should play all teams in the Power 5 conferences," Saban said. "If we did that, then if we were going to have bowl games, we should do the bowl games just like we do in the NCAA basketball tournament - not by record but by some kind of power rating that gets you in a bowl game. If we did that, people would be a little less interested in maybe bowl games and more interested in expanding the playoff."

Saban doesn't believe a six-win threshold should warrant a bowl-game appearance, and has a solution for that as well.

"You eliminate the six wins to get in a bowl game and now you can have a different kind of scheduling that is more fan interest, more good games, bring out the better quality team, and whether you expand the playoff or have a system where it's like now - we take the top 12 teams and decide what bowl game they go to - just take them all," he said.

Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher also weighed in on the idea, and in contrast to Saban, called for more non-conference Power 5 matchups in order to "help judge how you're rating each league."

Everyone seems to have a foolproof idea on how to improve bowl season and expand the CFP, but Saban may be on to something.

Eliminating all non-Power 5 opponents would create tougher competition and a more discernible ranking of teams, but it would likely cause a backlash from Group of 5 teams that sometimes rely on matchups with Power 5 opponents.

The bottom line for Saban is that he wants the best competition possible throughout the entire season, and would rather face a challenging opponent than one he thinks his program will steamroll.

"I would rather play Florida State," he said. "Not just Florida State but a good team in the beginning of the season because I think it does a lot for your team and your team's chances of being successful. First of all, you have a better offseason when the players have a big challenge in the first game. It really tells you regardless of the result where your team is, legitimately.

"And if you play a really weak team and you win the game 45-7, you still don't really know for sure if your team is really good or not good. You know exactly what you have to work on to get better, where your strengths, where your weaknesses are, maybe some changes you need to make. And I think it really helps you when you go play big games in your conference, especially on the road down the road."