Nick Saban made a statement at SEC Media Days on Wednesday that every college football fan needs to hear. The former Alabama coach declared that teams across the country should be required to play 12 games against Power 4 opponents.

Heavy discourse has surrounded the new nine-game SEC schedule this week, and Saban’s comments cut through the noise with a solution that addresses one of college football’s most persistent problems. Teams continue to drop competitive matchups from their future schedules, replacing them with G6 and FCS opponents who serve as little more than paid warm-up acts. Implementing a 12-game Power 4 requirement would put a stop to that.

The case for a full Power 4 slate

A full schedule of Power Conference opponents creates more compelling matchups across the board. That means better television products, which directly improves viewership. Higher viewership translates to larger media rights deals, and that influx of revenue could alleviate the financial concerns plaguing many programs around the country.

The most important benefit, however, is what it would do for the College Football Playoff selection process. One of the biggest issues facing the committee every year is comparing resumes across conferences when teams are playing wildly different levels of competition. If every team played 12 Power 4 games, there would be significantly more consistency when evaluating who deserves a playoff spot. The guesswork and controversy would shrink considerably.

The inevitable pushback

The understandable counterargument centers on the negative side effects this would have on G6 and FCS programs. Many of those schools rely on “buy games,” where they travel to a top program, take a lopsided loss, and collect a check that helps fund their athletic budgets for the year.

I played for an FCS program at Rhode Island from 2016-2019. I recognize the importance of those trips to places like Virginia Tech and Central Michigan to help keep the lights on. That reality isn’t lost on me, and it shouldn’t be dismissed. Those programs will have to figure out how to operate without that revenue stream, which is a legitimate challenge.

But the current state of college football can’t sustain a model where three opponents on a team’s schedule exist solely because they were paid to show up and get obliterated. That dynamic undermines the sport’s competitive integrity and makes it harder to identify the best teams when it matters most.

Where college football needs to go

Saban’s proposal isn’t just about making schedules tougher for the sake of toughness. It’s about creating a model where every game on the schedule carries weight. The sport has evolved past the point where padding win totals with overmatched opponents should be acceptable. The playoff era demands better data points, and 12 Power 4 games would provide them.

Hopefully, this conversation gains traction beyond SEC Media Days. College football would be a better product if every team played a full slate of meaningful games from September through November.