Nick Saban is starting off strong with his "College GameDay" tenure — with some strong language, that is. The former Alabama coach, who joined "College GameDay" after retiring at the end of last season, dropped a well-placed curse while talking about Ohio State on Saturday.
"I just wanna say, you guys keep talking about a $20 million roster," Saban said. "If you don't pay the right guys, you'll be sh** out of luck."
The unexpected swear prompted a big laugh out of Saban's GameDay co-stars.
Ohio State is heading into this season with a much-touted team, built with a $20 million NIL war chest — an unprecedentedly high amount for a college roster. Urban Meyer, a former coach-turned-broadcaster himself, further raised expectations by calling this Ohio State team "one of the most talented rosters in the last decade, maybe ever."
Saban clearly isn't buying it and is willing to drop a very out-of-character cuss word in order to prove it.
Ohio State is ranked No. 2 behind Georgia. After three weeks of cupcakes, the Buckeyes will face their first ranked opponent (No. 25 Iowa) in Week 5 and their first big challenge (No. 3 Oregon) in Week 6. By then, we should know if that roster is worth every penny — or if Ohio State is out of luck after all.
College Football Playoff Expansion
The College Football Playoff will introduce a 12-team playoff bracket for the 2024-25 season, expanding from the four-team format.
The new 12-team College Football Playoff field will include the five highest-ranked conference champions, which will receive automatic bids. The seven highest-ranked teams remaining will round out the 12-team format.
The top four teams will receive a first-round bye to the quarterfinals.
The four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded Nos. 1-4 and receive a first-round bye. Seeds 5-12 will play each other in the first round. The higher-seeded teams will play host in their first round games. Here's a breakdown of the first round matchups:
No. 12 Liberty at No. 5 Florida State No. 11 Ole Miss at No. 6 Georgia No. 10 Penn State at No. 7 Ohio State No. 9 Missouri at No. 8 Oregon
With the top-four seeded teams receiving bye weeks, the winner of each team listed above would move on to face teams No. 1 through 4. Teams will not be reseeded. This means that the top-ranked team would proceed to face the winner of the No. 9 and No. 8 matchup.
New Era of College Football
The College Football Playoff’s expansion to 12 teams this year will lead to a new mindset in the sport, Nick Saban said Saturday.
Speaking on the set of ESPN’s College GameDay, Saban said one loss early in the season won’t necessarily derail a team’s playoff hopes in the new era. Teams might even be able to lose multiple teams and still make the playoff, he said.
“I think we’ve got to get out of this ‘losing one game’ mentality that we have in college athletics, because it’s not gonna be that way anymore,” Saban said. “I think the most important thing is, how do you self-assess as a coach?
“Do you do the things you need to do to get your team to play winning football if you do stumble early, and then how does each player on your team self-assess to know what individually they have to do to be able to contribute to the team playing winning football? If you can do that, you can improve.”
Saban cited his own Alabama team last year, which lost in Week 2 to Texas and then looked like anything but a playoff team in a sloppy win the next week vs. South Florida. By season’s end, the Crimson Tide was SEC champions.
Those kinds of in-season turnarounds will become more common in the 12-team era, he said.
“f you look at us last year, we play bad against Texas,” Saban said. “We barely beat South Florida; it was 10-7 in the fourth quarter. But we became a playoff team — and that’s with four teams. So with 12, you’re going to be able to lose two games — maybe three — and still be able to get in the playoffs. The bounceback factor to me and how coaches handle defeats, losses and wins are all going to contribute to whether they have a chance to psychologically recover.”
“We know most people think that players respond better when you win to what you have to do to get better,” Saban said. “Players have a lot of pride. So, they actually respond better when you lose or when you don’t play well. Because they have pride in performance and they want to do better. Our team had the right disposition about trying to improve and trying to live up to the expectations that they had for themselves, as well as the fans had.”
Auburn is Back?
Kirk Herbstreit on Saturday revealed which SEC team he thought would make the most improvement.
“I think Auburn is a team everybody is forgetting about,” he said on College GameDay. “Hugh Freeze calling plays, Payton Thorne, it’s almost if people just dismiss him. He’s got receivers to throw to now. Auburn can be a thorn in the side in that conference.”
“I think Auburn is going to be the most improved team in the league. I really do,” Nick Saban added.
The Tigers, in Freeze’s first season in 2023, finished 6-7 (3-5 SEC). Freeze parted ways with offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery after the season ended and hired Derrick Nix — a longtime Ole Miss staffer dating back to Freeze’s days in Oxford — but Freeze will have offensive playcalling duties.
KeAndre Lambert-Smith, Penn State’s leading receiver in 2023, joined Auburn as an offseason transfer and will be one of Thorne’s primary targets, along with fellow portal addition Robert Lewis (Georgia State). Highly-regarded true freshman Cam Coleman, a Top 5 recruit, will have an opportunity to prove himself immediately.
Auburn opens the season at home against Alabama A&M on Aug. 31.
Saban Predicts Georgia to Win it All
ESPN “College GameDay” analyst and former Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban predicts the Georgia Bulldogs will win the national championship.
Saban is giving Kirby Smart and company some rat poison ahead of the Bulldogs’ season opener against the Clemson Tigers. Saban predicts Georgia will defeat the Texas Longhorns in the 2024 SEC championship game. He has Georgia as the No. 1 team in his projected College Football Playoff.
The former Alabama coach also predicts Ohio State will win the Big Ten to secure the No. 2 seed. In his prediction, which he made before Week 0, he has Florida State winning the ACC and ending up as the No. 3 seed. He thinks Utah will win the Big 12 to earn the final first round bye of the playoff.
Saban’s No. 5 seed in the playoff is Texas. He predicts the Longhorns will face Liberty (the No. 12 seed) in the opening round of the playoff. Saban loves the SEC. He has five SEC teams making his playoff including Ole Miss (No. 8), Alabama (No. 7) and LSU (No. 11).
The other teams that Saban predicts will make the playoff are Penn State (No. 9), Oregon (No. 6) and Notre Dame (No. 10).
“It’s gonna be crazy,” said Saban on the expanded playoff. As college football fans, crazy is what we love.
Reverse Rat Poison?
Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban admitted that he picked Georgia and Texas to play in the SEC title game last month to motivate his former team.
“I picked Georgia and Texas because it's reverse rat poison for Alabama,” Saban said on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Friday. “It's a motivating factor for them.”
Saban often referred to news that's too positive or looks too far ahead into the season as “rat poison” during his legendary coaching career.
The 72-year-old also explained that he hated it when his team was picked first or second in the conference because he didn't know how it'd impact his team psychologically.
“I always hated it. ... Having to predict and make hypothetical decisions about who's going to win a game, who's going to win the championship, who's going to win what conference. I've always hated that,” he said.
Alabama players didn't appear to be too concerned with the former coach's prediction during SEC media days in July.
“Something he taught me was not to pay attention to external factors, and since he works at the stadium now and not the facility, he's an external factor,” offensive lineman Tyler Booker said, according to ESPN's Heather Dinich.
“All we want to do is focus on us and worry about us,” quarterback Jalen Milroe said. “We still love Coach, it's all good.”
Saban led the Crimson Tide to six national titles during his time with Alabama. He became an ESPN analyst after announcing his retirement after the 2023 season.
New Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer will make his debut Aug. 31 against Western Kentucky.
