Year in and year out, non-conference schedules become a huge storyline throughout the college football season—especially for teams in playoff contention. Who have they beaten, who have they played, and who have the teams they've beaten beat?

This season it has become a storyline earlier than usual as Nick Saban used his platform at SEC Media Days to discuss how he believes Power 5 teams should schedule.

“I know nobody really asked this, but I’ve always been an advocate of playing all Power 5 schools,” Saban said. “I think we need to have more really, really good games on TV for the players. We can’t have fans who pay a lot of money for tickets and boxes and lounges who support our programs to pay for games that no one is interested in watching.”

So, with that in mind, we decided to do a little investigative research and see which schools are challenging themselves this season. Of note, we counted Notre Dame as a Power 5 school in this exercise. 

Schools With 8 Power 5 Games (1)

• Arkansas

New head coach Chad Morris inherits a very manageable schedule which features zero P5 non-conference opponents. The Razorbacks also get Texas A&M, Alabama, Ole Miss, and LSU at home. 

Schools With 9 Power 5 Games (30)

• Alabama
• Arizona
• Auburn
• Boston College
• Florida
• Georgia
• Georgia Tech
• Illinois
• Kentucky
• LSU
• Miami
• Minnesota
• Mississippi State
• Missouri 
• North Carolina
• North Carolina State
• Oklahoma State
• Ole Miss
• Oregon
• South Carolina
• Syracuse
• Tennessee
• Texas A&M
• Utah
• Vanderbilt
• Virginia 
• Virginia Tech
• Wake Forest
• Washington State
• Wisconsin

Despite Saban’s comments, during his 11 years in Tuscaloosa, Alabama has only played more than nine P5 teams once during the regular season and it was back in 2010. During that timeframe, the Crimson Tide have only played two true road non-conference games: Duke in 2010 and Penn State in 2011—which are also the only years the Tide did not play a neutral site game against a P5 opponent. 

In the Tide’s defense, with their postseason success included, 'Bama averages 11 P5 opponents per year. 

Schools With 10 Power 5 Games (28)

• Arizona State
• Baylor
• Cal
• Clemson
• Colorado
• Duke
• Florida State
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Iowa State
• Kansas
• Kansas State
• Louisville
• Maryland
• Michigan
• Michigan State
• Nebraska
• Notre Dame
• Oklahoma
• Oregon State
• Penn State
• Pitt
• Rutgers
• Stanford
• TCU
• Texas Tech
• UCLA
• Washington 

Shoutout to these 28 teams for testing themselves and scheduling double digit P5 teams. 

One problem: Eight of the past 10 national champions have only played nine P5 opponents during the regular season. The only exceptions were Clemson in 2016 and Florida in 2008, who each played 10 such opponents during the regular season. 

Schools With 11 Power 5 Games (6)

• Northwestern
• Ohio State
• Purdue
• Texas
• USC
• West Virginia

No team has won a national title playing 11 Power 5 opponents during the regular season since Michigan shared the national title with Nebraska in 1997. Best of luck Wildcats, Buckeyes, Boilermakers, Longhorns, Trojans and Mountaineers.