by Kevin Scarbinsky, News columnist , Birmingham News

Here's perhaps the best reason of all:

Nick Saban believes the school should appeal the sanctions.

The head football coach hasn't said so publicly, but behind the scenes, on more than one occasion, he's expressed his approval of university President Robert Witt's decision to try to gain some relief.

No one should be surprised.

He may not have presided over the 16 games Alabama won in 2005 and 2006 that the NCAA vacated, and he may not share any blame for the players who took advantage of the system and the system that took far too long to catch them, but c'mon.

This is Nick Saban we're talking about here.

The man works too hard to win each and every football game to give up five victories of his own after the fact without a fight.

For the last week, since the NCAA put Alabama on probation for three years and fined the school $43,900 and vacated 21 of the football program's victories in 2005, 2006 and 2007 - but didn't take away any scholarships - people have asked a leading question about Saban's real reaction.

Wouldn't he rather lose wins from the past than scholarships for the future?

Obviously, if that's the only choice, but it's not in an NCAA justice system that includes an appeals process.

Would Saban rather lose wins or scholarships?

The real answer is no. He'd rather not lose either.

An appeal gives the school a chance to restore the past at no risk to the future, unless you fear an NCAA backlash down the road.

In this case, the Infractions Appeals Committee can't add new penalties. All it can do is uphold the sanctions levied by the Infractions Committee or take some of them away.

It'll be interesting when Alabama files its appeal to discover exactly which of the penalties the school asks to be set aside.

Will it request that the three years of probation be reduced to two?

Either way, the amount of time the school will spend in the repeat-violator window will remain at five years.

Will it ask that all 21 wins that were vacated be restored or just the five from Saban's first season?

Witt has said twice that he believes the penalties were excessive.

He said it in his statement the day the NCAA announced the sanctions, and he said it again Wednesday in his statement announcing the appeal.

Where does he believe the penalties crossed that line?

There's a school of thought inside the football building, which is natural because Saban now occupies that building and Mike Shula does not, that the

NCAA crossed the line in 2007.

After the five ''intentional wrongdoers'' on that team were found out, Alabama suspended them, and they stayed suspended for four games.

The NCAA , not Alabama, determined the length of those suspensions.

Short on depth from the start that year, Alabama lost three of those four games - to LSU, Mississippi State and Louisiana-Monroe - as well as the first game back for the Textbook Five, at Auburn.

There's no disputing that Alabama paid a price on the field that year.

Alabama considers vacating the five victories before Antoine Caldwell, Glen Coffee, Marlon Davis, Marquis Johnson and Chris Rogers were discovered to be a form of double jeopardy.

But there's also no disputing that the Committee on Infractions applied a simple rule: If one of the intentional wrongdoers played in a game before a bookstore employee blew the whistle, that player was ineligible. If Alabama won that game, Alabama had to vacate that win.

It's hard to imagine Alabama getting any of those wins back, but it doesn't hurt to try to win them again. Just as it never hurts a university president to find himself on the same page as his football coach.

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Join the conversation with Kevin by reading his columns and commenting at Scarblog on al.com. Go to blog.al.com/ kevin-scarbinsky. Or write him at kscarbinsky@bhamnews.com

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