PITTSBURGH — Nick Saban went off the deep end over the past few days decrying NIL deals and how the idea of programs being able to pay players is bad for college football. He singled out Jackson State — yes, Jackson State — and Texas A&M as two programs that engaged in the apparently immoral act of "buying players"
Saban said of Texas A&M: "We were second in recruiting last year, A&M was first. A&M bought every player on their team. Made a deal for name, image and likeness. We didn't buy one player."
He then claimed he read in the paper that Jackson State "paid a guy a million dollars last year that was a really good Division I player to come to the school. And they bragged about it. Nobody did anything about it."
Saban didn't just stick to football, by the way, as he had some kind words for Miami basketball, as well: "These guys at Miami that are going to play basketball for $400,000, it's in the newspaper. The guy tells you how he's doing it. But the NCAA can't enforce their rules because it's not against the law."
OK, full stop.
Let's get the obvious part out of the way first — Saban is coming off like the stereotypical "get off my lawn" miserable man so out of touch with reality that it is laughable and sad all at once. He also comes off as completely lacking in self awareness. He is a hypocrite when he says "we didn't buy a single player." He is lying, unless he is going to go with the idea that not a single member of Alabama's recruiting class got an NIL deal.
Saban won a national championship at LSU and has won a bunch at Alabama, two SEC schools consumed with winning. Knowing everything we know about college football, does he really want us to believe that all those first-round picks and five-star kids he recruited over the years came to those two schools out of the goodness of their hearts? Does he really want us to believe that if the NCAA cared enough to really take a deep look into all of his recruiting classes, they wouldn't find at least a few guys who may have been familiar with the term "bag man?"
I mean, come on, I was born at night but it wasn't last night. College football and basketball recruiting long ago stopped being about facilities, coaching staffs and education. And recruits — plus their handlers — understood their value. And this isn't an assault on just Alabama, LSU or the SEC. They were playing the same game many other programs were until last year, when bag men became legal under the guise of NIL deals.
Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher and Jackson State's Deion Sanders both made it very clear they were not happy with Saban's comments. Both refused to take Saban's call and attempt at an apology, and Fisher even called Saban "despicable" for attacking his program like that.
Controversy is always very good for this business and it made for some great talk show fodder nationally Thursday, but most people missed a very important point. Saban comes off like a big baby, but he wasn't completely wrong in his overall point. In fact, if you strip away the juicy part, Saban was actually more right than he was wrong.
"It's gotten completely out of control and not a sustainable model," Saban said to ESPN after the whole thing blew up. "It's to the point where you've got these attorneys, agents, calling collectives and saying, 'Pay my player a hundred thousand dollars a year,' and then they want their piece of that. They all want a cut."
He then added: "I should have been more specific when I said 'bought' in saying you can buy players now through name, image and likeness and never mentioned any specific school and just said 'across the sport.' ... A lot of people are silent on this, and some of it has been people lumping NIL in with using NIL to pay players to go to school. But, you know, at this stage of my career, I'm not worried about what people think of me."
Saban is right. NIL is out of control and so much so that if it isn't brought back to reality, it won't be sustainable. Also, NIL was never meant to be a recruiting inducement but rather a reward. And NIL was never meant to be legal tampering, which is what went on with former Pittsburgh receiver Jordan Addison. Also, if we are to believe that the reported numbers of Andrew Fillipponi are correct that Addison is set to receive $3.5 million from USC, then it is absolutely ridiculous.
People need to remember the vast, overwhelming majority of these players are students first and players second. These nonsensical comparisons to what the coaches are making are mind-numbingly stupid and intellectually dishonest. Coaches are employees; athletes are students and the overwhelming majority of them aren't superstars headed for big careers as pros.
NIL is good thing, it rewards athletes for their ability to generate interest in their sports, their teams and their schools. But it has to become better regulated and under control, and it should never be a part of the recruiting process.
Saban is a whiner, but most of his overall point is correct.
