During his first college football season as a member of the media, Nick Saban absolutely nailed last year’s SEC Championship picks when he predicted Georgia and Texas would ultimately battle it out for league supremacy, a battle the Bulldogs won 22-19 in overtime last December. Now, ahead of what will be Saban’s second season as […]
During his first college football season as a member of the media, Nick Saban absolutely nailed last year’s SEC Championship picks when he predicted Georgia and Texas would ultimately battle it out for league supremacy, a battle the Bulldogs won 22-19 in overtime last December.
Now, ahead of what will be Saban’s second season as part of the ESPN College GameDay crew, the former Alabama head coach once again made his predictions for which SEC teams will be in contention for the 2025 conference crown during an appearance at his annual Nick’s Kids Foundation Luncheon inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. For his money, Saban remains a big believer in preseason No. 1 Texas while at the same time not discounting the progress Florida and LSU have made, in addition to the last two defending SEC champions Crimson Tide (2023) and Bulldogs (2024).
“I think Texas is one of the teams that obviously is really, really good this year,” Saban said Tuesday, according to CBS Sports’ Alex Scarborough. “I think LSU has got a shot to be really good. I think Florida’s got a shot to be really good. I think Alabama and Georgia both have a shot to be really good. So I think there’s a lot of sort of top-end good teams.”
While he sees plenty of potential at the top of the SEC, Saban took the opportunity to cast shade on the league’s depth and how it could put the league frontrunners at a “disadvantage” when the College Football Playoff selection committee meets for its final Top 25 ranking ahead of next year’s Playoff. That was certainly the case in 2024, when a trio of three-loss SEC teams — Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina — found themselves on the outside looking in on the first-ever 12-team Playoff field.
“It gets to be a little bit of a disadvantage, because you get penalized for losses more in college football than you (get rewarded) for strength of schedule, which was unfortunate for Alabama last year in terms of getting in the Playoffs” Saban said, according to Scarborough. “But hopefully we’ll get that fixed and work together to try to do it in the future, so that strength of schedule becomes an important part of how you get selected to get the playoffs. And you shouldn’t get penalized for playing in a championship. So hopefully all those things will come to fruition.”
Category: General Sports
