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Saban: Is this what we want football to be?

No. 1 Alabama is off this weekend, so coach Nick Saban has a little bit more time to be reflective.

And from the sound of it, he’s not a big fan of the up-tempo, no-huddle craze that seems to be engulfing college football and producing Xbox-like offensive numbers.

"I think that the way people are going no-huddle right now, that at some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety," Saban said Wednesday on the SEC teleconference. "The team gets in the same formation group. You can't substitute defensive players. You go on a 14-, 16- or 18-play drive and they're snapping the ball as fast as you can go, and you look out there and all your players are walking around and can't even get lined up. That's when guys have a much greater chance of getting hurt ... when they're not ready to play. I think that's something that can be looked at. It's obviously created a tremendous advantage for the offense when teams are scoring 70 points and we're averaging 49.5 points a game. More and more people are going to do it.

"I just think there's got to be some sense of fairness in terms of asking: Is this what we want football to be?"