While No. 10 Alabama takes some much-needed time off for the bye this week, there is an ever-evolving fight in the postseason race around college football. 

As conference races begin to tighten and the margin for error shrinks, former Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban believes the Big 12’s path specifically to the College Football Playoff will be determined by a simple, yet elusive quality within the league: finishing.

The legendary coach appeared on the Pat McAfee show Friday afternoon, giving his insight on the CFP race and noting that the carnage in the SEC schedule could swallow multiple teams whole.

“I know everybody thinks I’m an SEC homer,” Saban said. “But the one- and two-loss [SEC] teams, they have 10 more losses coming up between them because they’re all going to play each other. So you talk about cannibalizing some teams, that’s going to happen in the SEC for sure.”

Alabama (6-2, 4-2 SEC) is among that pack of teams at the top of the SEC and has conference games remaining against LSU (6-2, 3-2 SEC), Vanderbilt (3-5, 0-5 SEC) and Auburn (4-3, 2-3 SEC), which is an easier schedule than some of the other teams in contention.

Saban suggested that the Big 12 could undergo a similar process, though he sees a handful of programs separating themselves as contenders.

“That could happen in the Big 12, although I do think there’s three or four teams in the Big 12: Utah, BYU, I don’t know about Texas Tech; you know, they didn’t look so good last week against Cincinnati. I think Arizona might be a [good] team.” 

Despite BYU’s loss a week ago, the Cougars and Utah have each positioned themselves as top contenders within the conference, while Arizona has begun to emerge as a possible threat. Texas Tech, while very talented, boasts some serious question marks after the spanking it took from Cincinnati a week ago.

For the seven-time national champion head coach, the talent and league standings tell only a fraction of the story. Saban believes that the coming weeks will start to reveal which programs possess the resilience needed to stick around in the playoff race.

“So they’ve got some really, really good teams,” Saban said. “And I think whoever hits the second gear now at this point in the season and can finish- who can prove they can finish? You know, finish games, finish plays, play well in the fourth quarter.”

Sound familiar?

Anyone who knows about Saban’s coaching philosophy knows he built his teams around the importance of maintaining focus for four quarters and avoiding the mental lapses that turn wins into losses.

“You gotta be able to finish, man,” he said. “It takes some maturity and some mental toughness to be able to do that, and that’s gonna be the key to the drill in the Big 12 to me.”

It’s a lesson that’s especially relevant to a league like the Big 12 where, in recent weeks, we’ve begun to see cracks form amongst the contenders. 

“Which one of these teams can step up and finish at the end of the season?” Saban said.