Even with the 2023 season approaching, Nick Saban takes exception to the fact that the Alabama Crimson Tide weren't put in the College Football Playoff.
The Alabama Crimson Tide are preparing for the 2023 season, in which they won't have quarterback Bryce Young or linebacker Will Anderson, who were both drafted in the top three of this year's NFL Draft. The duo didn't get the chance to compete for the College Football Playoff national championship one last time. That's because they weren't one of the four teams to qualify for the Playoff.
Alabama head coach Nick Saban sat down with FOX Sports' Joel Klatt on "The Joel Klatt Show," and he talked about the team not qualifying for the College Football Playoff last season. Let's just say that Saban is still upset that the Tide didn't qualify.
"So but the problem with the way the whole system is, there's no accounting for that, right," Saban said, h/t Roll Bama Roll. "So, all we do is take the teams that win the most games at the end of the year, put them in the playoffs. But do you really get the best teams? When they told me that we would be favored against three out of the four teams that got in the playoff, I'm like, why aren't we in the playoffs?
"Does that mean they have a better team? Or does it mean that those people don't know what they're talking about? I really don't know that. But I'm not being critical of anybody. But if you're going to have parity, you have to have a better way of figuring out who has the best teams, not just because you lose two games on the last play of the game.
"That knocks you out when you may be better than somebody else who didn't have the same circumstances that they had played."
Nick Saban still doesn't understand why Alabama didn't qualify for the College Football Playoff in the 2022 season
Entering last season, Alabama was the top-ranked team in the nation. But, they didn't exactly dominate the competition, as evidenced by their 20-19 win over the Texas Longhorns and 24-20 victory against the Texas A&M Aggies. Yet they were still undefeated in the first half of the season. That came to an end after they lost 52-49 to the No. 6 Tennessee Volunteers in an epic duel. Two games later, Alabama lost to the No. 10 LSU Tigers 32-31 in overtime.
Even after that second loss of the season to LSU, it looked as though Alabama was out of Playoff contention. Yet, after teams ranked ahead of them began losing, Alabama crept up the rankings, potentially in a position to steal a spot. But, it was Georgia, Michigan, TCU, and Ohio State who earned a spot in the four-team playoff. Alabama earned the No. 5 seed.
The Crimson Tide earned a spot in the Sugar Bowl, where they blew out the No. 9 Kansas State 45-20.
Meanwhile, Georgia defeated TCU by the score of 65-7 in the CFP National Championship Game. This comes after the Horned Frogs upset the Wolverines in the Fiesta Bowl and the Bulldogs beat the Buckeyes in the Peach Bowl.
This will be the final year in which the College Football Playoff will be limited to four teams. Beginning in 2024, the field will expand to 12 teams — six of the top-ranked conference champions and the six highest-ranked teams. The top four ranked conference champions will earn a bye, while the remaining eight teams will face off in the first round. From there, the four winners will face off against the four conference champions who earned a bye.
Alabama and Saban missed out on competing in the CFP National Championship Game for the third year in a row last year. This season, they'll look to make a return for the third time in the past four years.
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