Nick Saban does not care about the College Football Playoff rankings (Video)
The first edition of the College Football Playoff rankings come out Tuesday night.
Nick Saban doesn’t care.
Alabama, ranked No. 1 in the AP poll, has a strong chance to be the CFP selection committee’s No. 1 team through nine weeks as well. When asked about it, Saban had a predictable response.
“I could care less about the poll,” Saban said. “What significance does a poll have right now? All we’re talking about right here is the challenge of our season and where are we going to be in the poll if we don’t play well in the next four games? So I’m focused on the next four games. I could care less about the poll. You won’t see me wasting any time watching TV or watching who is one and who is two. It doesn’t really matter. What really matters is how you play the rest of the season, how you focus the rest of the season, and how you stay focused the rest of the season.“
Saban already ranted earlier this season about outside influences affecting his players. The Tide beat Texas A&M 27-19 on the road last month in a game that was closer than expected. After the game, Saban lamented about the amount of praise his team had gotten from the media to that point in the season, calling it “rat poison.”
“I’m trying to get our players to listen to me instead of listening to you guys,” Saban said. “All that stuff you write about how good we are. It’s like poison. It’s like taking poison. Like rat poison.”
He expressed a similar sentiment when it comes to the rankings, but wasn’t quite as surly this time around.
“If our players think anything of (the CFP poll) then that can be a problem and an issue, too,” Saban said. “These are the things we try to categorize as poison that you don’t really want your players to be focusing on or thinking about, but I appreciate you asking so I could get this off my chest.”
The unbeaten Crimson Tide, coming off a bye, host No. 19 LSU on Saturday.
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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
