HOOVER, Ala. -- Alabama coach Nick Saban suggested Thursday morning that, in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, Penn State add a surcharge to its athletic tickets and donate the proceeds to combat child abuse.

“What do we want the outcome of this to be?” Saban asked. “Something that’s a win-win for the kids and the people there now, the players there now. Maybe tax all the tickets that they sell and give the proceeds to child abuse … rather than worry about some punishment that’s not going to have some positive effect on anything.”

Saban is a methodical man, and the ticket surcharge must have been a brainstorm he tossed out, because after a couple of follow-up questions, he said, “Probably not a very good idea, and I probably shouldn’t have said it.”

But he explained his thinking by comparing it to handling a disciplinary issue of one of his players.

“Everybody is always worried about, ‘What’s the punishment?’” he said. “I always try to look at it as what’s the outcome? What outcome do you want? Do you want to graduate from school? Play in the NFL? If that’s the outcome you want, this behavior is not becoming of that. So what do we need to do to make it better?”