Alabama football coach Nick Saban said that the biggest issue in FBS scheduling is the "six-win threshold for bowl eligibility -- a standard he said 'holds the game down, quality-wise,'" according to Heather Dinich of ESPN.com. Saban: "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." Saban added, "We all play three or four games a year now that nobody's really interested in." Saban "suggested a 10-game SEC schedule, for example, plus two Power 5 nonconference opponents during the regular season." Saban: "We should play all teams in the Power 5 conferences. 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." Saban also said that there is "too much time between the conference championship games and the playoff." Saban: "It's very hard for players to go 27 days without playing a game and then go into playoffs" (ESPN.com, 7/26).
FLY IN THE OINTMENT? CFP Exec Dir Bill Hancock yesterday at Mountain West Conference media days said there is "absolutely a tremendous chance for one of the teams from any conference to qualify for the championship game." Hancock: "What I like to say is go play a good schedule, win your games and you’re going to be in the hunt." In San Diego, Kirk Kenney notes SDSU football coach Rocky Long is among those who "suggests expanding" the CFP from four to eight teams. Long "posits that an eight-team format would allow all five champions from the Power Five conferences, two at-large teams and one Group of Five representative to get a spot in the playoff" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 7/27).
