Shhhh.
Whenever we mention anything about a nine-game conference schedule, a few folks get nasty in our comment section. So darn you, Nick Saban. It’s too bad you had to go and open up about wanting to move to a — wait for it — nine-game schedule. (And if some of you don’t want to read the news, folks, no one’s making you.)
“I’m satisfied with what everybody determined, but in all honesty, I was kind of for playing more games. When you increase the size of the league by 15 percent, you’ve almost got to play more games to get a true indication of who is the best team in the league. I think we should come up with some format in the future where every player in the league gets an opportunity to play every team in the league. We’ve kind of had that in the past. This format won’t necessarily give every player an opportunity to do that.”
Saban said it was the schools already playing nine BCS-level games via annual, year-end rivals who scuttled the plan for nine league games. Nevermind the fact that Alabama has been playing nine BCS foes per year throughout Saban’s tremendous run — Virginia Tech, Clemson, Penn State, and this year Michigan. For that matter, LSU played 10 BCS-level foes last season including Oregon at neutral site and West Virginia on the road. At least some schools aren’t afraid to mix it up with a few more big boys each season.
“In some cases, whether it’s Florida having to play Florida State, South Carolina-Clemson, Georgia-Georgia Tech, they already have another game that’s a tough game for them,” Saban told The Tuscaloosa News. “So when you play more conference games, now their schedule gets a little overloaded the other way.”
Unless of course you consider schools like Alabama who’ve been “overloading” their schedules the other way for national exposure, recruiting boosts, and strength of schedule help in the BCS formula.
Ah, well. The league will be forced to go to nine games soon enough.
