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Alabama head football coach Nick Saban signs the shirt of Children's of Alabama escort Shawn Anthony. The Regions Tradition NCR Pro-Am day held at Shoal Creek Country Club in Hoover, Alabama Wednesday May 13, 2015.

(Frank Couch\fcouch@al.com)

A year ago, this was all brand new.

Everyone had theories for how the first College Football Playoff would go, but nobody knew exactly how it would work. Now there's at least a year of results, experience and reviews.

Alabama coach Nick Saban had a few concerns entering the new postseason plan. And from his perspective, those reservations remain.

"I learned what I feared the most would happen," Saban said before teeing off Wednesday at the Regions Tradition pro-am in Birmingham. "All the attention, all the interest would be about the four teams in the playoffs, which is exactly what happened, which was great to be a part of.

"But what I was most fearful of is college football is unique. A lot of young men get a lot of positive self gratification from being able to go to a bowl game and that's always been a special thing. That by having a playoff we would minimize the interest in other bowl games, which I think is sort of what happened and I hate to see that for college football."

Alabama was the No. 1 overall seed in the first playoff, but lost to eventual champion Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl. Attendance dropped four percent for the 34 bowl games that returned from the previous year.

At the same time, there will reportedly be four new bowl games added to the calendar for this season.

Saban wondered how it will work moving forward.

"Maybe we need to go one way or the other," he said. "Either have bowl games or have playoffs but not try to have both."