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Alabama coach Nick Saban reacts during his team's 45-31 loss to Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 2, 2014, in New Orleans. (Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com)

Tell Bob Stoops that Nick Saban may have been mistaken. To the Alabama football program, the Sugar Bowl really wasn't, as Saban said this week, "a consolation game."

In truth, and Stoops isn't going to like this any better, it was more of an exhibition game.

Any bowl game that isn’t a semifinal playoff game or the national championship game is an exhibition game for the Crimson Tide.

It goes beyond the fact that Saban has raised the bar in Tuscaloosa to Got 13/14/15/16 or bust. It actually says so right there in section 4.03 (b) of the coach’s contract under the subheading “Incentives.”

There is no financial incentive for Saban to win any postseason games other than the SEC Championship Game, a playoff semifinal and the Student-Athlete Super Bowl.

Check the numbers. Saban gets $65,000 for playing in a garden variety bowl. He gets $90,000 for playing in the Chick-fil-a, Cotton, Capital One, Outback, Gator “or any equal successor bowl game associated with the Southeastern Conference.” He gets $125,000 for playing in a BCS “or its successor entity” bowl that’s not part of the playoff system.

How much of a bonus does he get for winning any of those games? Not a penny more. Simply getting there is its own reward.

There is, however, extra money on the line in the SEC Championship Game. Reach it, and Saban gets $75,000. Win it, and he gets $125,000.

There’s even more money on the line in the playoff. Reach the semifinals, and he gets $200,000. Win a semifinal game, and that bonus is $300,000. Win the semifinal and the final, and he earns $400,000, payable - as all of these bonuses are - within 30 days.

This is in addition, of course, to the $6.9 million a year Alabama now pays Saban for coaching 12 regular-season games because, as the contract says, there is "additional work that is required for postseason games."

So Stoops really shouldn’t take it personally that Saban appeared to minimize Oklahoma’s 45-31 win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Truth is, as much as Saban wants to win every game he coaches, he got paid the same $125k for losing to the Sooners that he would’ve earned had he beaten them.

Do the math and don't forget to add LSU 21, Oklahoma 14 in 2003's national championship extravaganza. When it comes to games between them in the Superdome that really matter, the scoreboard still reads Saban 1, Stoops 0.