Nick Saban on canceling MSU series: 'Nothing personal'

Joe Rexrode | Detroit Free Press

ARLINGTON, Texas – Alabama and Michigan State were supposed to play each other about nine months from now in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, but Nick Saban ended that idea.

Or did he? The Alabama head coach and former MSU coach talked today about the 2013 cancellation of a home-and-home series – the teams were supposed to meet in 2017 in East Lansing — and said: "First of all, these are not all my decisions."

When the cancellation was first announced, an Alabama spokesman said it was based on uncertainty over the SEC schedule at the time — the possibility of a ninth SEC game, which has not materialized. The Big Ten will go to a nine-game schedule next season.

Saban later said it was more about Alabama wanting to stick with neutral-site games, and he reiterated that today at media day for No. 2 Alabama at AT&T Stadium — where the Crimson Tide (12-1) will take on No. 3 MSU (12-1) in Thursday's Cotton Bowl national semifinal.

"For business reasons, we have played neutral-site games to start the season," Saban said. "And when you play a home-and-home – which we played Penn State home-and-home a few years ago — when you play at home you do really well (financially), when you play away you don't do very well. When you play a neutral-site (game), you do very well every year.

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"We wanted to try to play the series, instead of home-and-home, at neutral sites. And we had other opportunities to play other teams at neutral sites. So from a business perspective, our administration chose to do that. It was certainly nothing personal. And not that it wouldn't have been a great series, I think it would have been."

MSU athletic director Mark Hollis said last week of the series and Alabama: "They wanted a neutral-site game and now they've got a neutral-site game."

Said MSU junior linebacker Riley Bullough about the series that might have been: "As players, we don't really focus on that too much. That's way above our heads, we don't control that. All I know is we're excited to play them, they're excited to play us."