Nick Saban not happy with CFP schedule
College football teams are used to playing on a weekly basis during the regular season.
But when a national championship is on the line, Alabama coach Nick Saban doesn’t think one week of preparation is enough.
Alabama defeated Clemson in the Sugar Bowl on Monday in New Orleans, giving the Crimson Tide a spot in the College Football Playoff championship game Monday in Atlanta against the Georgia Bulldogs.
Saban said that leaves his team with basically three days of practice to prepare for the title game.
“Somebody has to think about the players and not what’s convenient for the media or TV or whatever,” the coach told reporters during a teleconference Tuesday.
Saban said he realizes both teams are facing a short turnaround. Georgia played in the Rose Bowl in California on Monday afternoon and had to fly back to Georgia.
Meanwhile, the Crimson Tide’s game with Clemson ended just before midnight local time in New Orleans and the team didn’t leave the stadium until after 1 a.m. After spending the night in New Orleans, the Tide had a four-hour bus ride back to Tuscaloosa on Tuesday.
After practicing Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, they will head to Atlanta to finish preparations for Monday’s title game.
Saban said he would have liked to have had an extra travel day to make sure his players are rested and prepared.
“It’s very difficult to come from a bowl game and just have seven days to prepare,” Saban said. “I mean, they’re [Georgia] coming from the West Coast; we’re coming from New Orleans. Then we’ve got to be someplace else on Friday.”
This is the fourth year of the College Football Playoffs and it is the shortest span to date between the semifinals and championship game. The previous three years had anywhere from 10 to 12 days between the two rounds.
The championship game is always slated to be played on a Monday. The semifinals have been played on New Year’s Eve the past two seasons but were moved to New Year’s Day this year in the hopes of higher ratings and to avoid conflict with NFL games on Sunday.
The result was a shorter-than-normal turnaround.
Saban said the usual one-week turnaround in the regular season is less hectic than what happens in the postseason.
“It’s a little bit different when you’re playing in the season and you go to a game on Friday, you play on Saturday, you come home after the game,” he said. “The players are kind of off on Sunday or some people do it differently and give them off on Monday and then you start the new week on Monday. But when you go to a bowl game and you’re there for a week, it’s really kind of hard to pack up and leave at 1:00 in the morning to get home.”
If Alabama qualifies for the national championship game next season, Saban will have a couple of extra days to prepare. The semifinals will be on Saturday, Dec. 29, with the title game on Monday, Jan. 7, in Santa Clara, California.
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