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When the NCAA approved for college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness in July 2021, it chartered with it a new frontier in the college sports landscape. However, since the end of the first college football season with NIL, several coaches and prominent sports athletes have spoken out, urging the NCAA to enforce new NIL guidelines so that the game will not be “ruined.”
While parity in college sports, especially football, has been nonexistent, the impact of NIL on the game and players entering the transfer portal has broaden the gap between the average, the good and the elite teams. However, Alabama football coach Nick Saban believes parity should be re-installed in college football. “One of the things I like to see us be able to work back to is everything in CFB has always had parity,” Saban told Paul Finebaum on The Paul Finebaum Show on Friday.
Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin, who was once an assistant under Saban, thought his former coach’s comments were comical. “I love the [GOAT] but Coach ………. U feeling Ok?? @AlabamaFTBL,” Kiffin tweeted, adding cry-laughing emojis.
Kiffin’s response is worth noting. How can the sport “go back to parity” if it never existed?
Let’s look at Saban’s resume as a college coach for a moment. Before coming to Alabama, Saban coached at LSU from 2000 to ’04, winning a BCS national championship in 2003. After a disappointing NFL stint with the Dolphins, he came to Alabama in 2007. In the last 15 seasons under Saban, the Crimson Tide have appeared in nine national championship games and won six.
Saban’s ability to secure top-notch recruiting classes each year has been the source of his success. But, the 70-year-old coach wants the sport he has dominated—in what many consider the best conference for college football—for more than two decades to include parity.
Kiffin’s follow-up response was even more perfect. “Paul [Finebaum] did you tell what that word means????@AlabamaFTBL Parity = “the state or condition of being equal, especially regarding status or pay” @CFB,” Kiffin tweeted.
Even if more parity finds its way into college sports, particularly football, Saban and the Crimson Tide will still be among the cream of the crop.
- Nick Saban Concerned About ‘Parity’ in College Football
- Former LSU Star Tyrann Mathieu Praises New Coach Brian Kelly
- Iowa AD Thinks NCAA Should Change Transfer Rule Amid NIL Concerns
- The Grove Report: In-State Star Slaughter High on Ole Miss, Closing in on Commitment
For more Ole Miss coverage, go to The Grove Report.
