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By Andrew Gould
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Nick Saban isn't on board with the College Football Playoff field doubling to 24 teams next season.
The legendary Alabama head coach joined many critics in questioning the need for a larger CFP pool. Saban explained his opposition to the incoming format on the "New Heights" podcast.
"Too many. There's not 24 teams in the country that can win a National Championship," Saban said. "So, what is the reason to actually do it? Money."
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Saban lamented eliminating conference championship games to make room for extra CFP matchups.
"What you're giving up, which I hate to see, is the SEC Championship Game," Saban added. "Playing in the SEC Championship was a big thing for our players. It was a big thing for our fans. It was a tradition, and it was a great venue. There's only two teams who can play in a National Championship, but more teams can play in those type of championship games. There’s a lot of pride in winning the conference championship."
The seven-time national champion also feels the selection committee hasn't chosen the best candidates since expanding from four to 12 teams. Alabama narrowly missed the cut in Kalen DeBoer's first season replacing the retired Saban because of automatic qualifiers.
"If we had just put the right 12 teams in and didn't go through all the political BS that we went through so we can have a 12-team Playoff? And end up putting a couple teams in that shouldn't be in, and then some other teams that should've been in didn't get in, that was a good tournament," Saban said. "Maybe you go to 16 if you want to influence some other people, but 24 is a lot. It's too many games for college football players to play. We played 15 games three times, and I thought that was too many games."
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Furthermore, Saban wondered whether the larger CFP will even offer a financial boost to programs.
"I really don't think that it's gonna create that much more revenue because you're gonna give up a lot of revenue," Saban predicted. "I mean, the SEC Championship Game, for instance, there's a lot of revenue involved in that. So just because you have an extra round of the playoffs, I don't know how much greater the revenue's gonna be for the actual schools. I'm not a big proponent of it. I think it minimizes the importance of a season."
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