Shots Fired: Nick Saban takes aim at Texas A&M, Miami over NIL
Alabama coach Nick Saban spoke for nearly seven minutes straight about name, image and likeness ramifications Wednesday night during a World Games event.
A few seconds is what will matter most.
Nearly through with his soliloquy where Saban’s stream of consciousness took him through the intentions of NIL, why it’s good, why it’s concerning and much more, he delivered this whopper:
“We were second in recruiting last year, A&M was first,” Saban said. “A&M bought every player on their team, made a deal for name, image and likeness. We didn’t buy one player. But I don’t know if we’re going to be able to sustain that in the future because more and more people are doing it.”
Texas A&M visits Alabama on Oct. 8. Should be fun.
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The evolution of NIL has taken many twists and turns in recent months as it’s birthed a life of its own. From reports that five-star Nico Iamaleava could make up to $8 million from it by playing at Tennessee to accusations about wrongdoing, collectives, directives and every semblance of every discussion known to man, it has altered recruiting, some believe for the better, some believe for the far worse.
Most in the NIL space agree that it has already been warped from the logical idea that players already in college should be able to make money off their name, image and likeness by doing commercials or running events or signing autographs to a more sinister pay-for-play recruiting inducement scheme that completely turns recruiting on its head.
What has stuck in Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher’s craw after the Aggies finished with the No. 1 class in the Rivals team rankings for the first time in company history dating back to 2002 is that NIL had anything to do with their recruiting success last cycle.
The Aggies signed six five-stars and 20 four-star prospects, compiled one of the best defensive line classes in Rivals history and Fisher’s claim is that NIL had nothing to do with it.
At his signing day press conference in February, Fisher even mentioned Saban’s name and pointed to Alabama quarterback Bryce Young’s reported lucrative NIL deal as irony that Saban would broach the topic at all. That is not an apples-to-apples comparison to the accusations levied at Texas A&M since Young was already at Alabama when he supposedly landed the deal but Fisher was hot anyway.
“And then to have coaches in our league and across this league say it, clown acts,” Fisher said on signing day. “Irresponsible as hell. Multiple coaches in our league. And the guys griping about NIL, griping about transfer portal, are using it the most and bragging about it the most. That’s the ironic part. … It’s a joke and it does piss me off.
“I know how some of those guys recruit, too. Go dig into that. I know the history, I know the tradition and I know things. Trust me, you don’t want to go down that avenue. It’s ridiculous and it’s unbelievable and it’s irresponsible and I’m not just talking about one. Multiple people got NIL issues.
“It’s funny when Nick Saban said his quarterback got an $800,000 deal, it was wonderful. Now it ain’t wonderful no more, huh? If you don’t like it we’re coming on, get used to it. We ain’t going nowhere. … Ball games are changing and it’s not because of NIL and what goes on.”
To be fair, Saban used other seemingly concerning NIL examples to prove his point Wednesday night including Jackson State’s pursuit of No. 1 overall recruit Travis Hunter with a large NIL deal last cycle where he said, “it was in the paper and they bragged about it. Nobody did anything about it,” and Miami booster John Ruiz’s open - and almost braggadocious - pursuit of basketball players for the Hurricanes.
“The guy tells you how he’s doing it,” Saban said. “But the NCAA can’t enforce their rules because it’s not against the law. That’s an issue. That’s a problem. And unless we get something that protects them from litigation I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”
NIL has transformed and transfixed college football recruiting. Saban’s comments stoke an offseason flame that is sure to reach College Station and Fisher’s office.
Maybe it does just mean more in the SEC. Saban’s comments Wednesday night are going to mean a lot.
TRANSCRIPT OF NICK SABAN’S FULL COMMENTS FROM WORLD GAMES EVENT VIA AL.COM
“Name, image and likeness is a great concept for players. Players have always been allowed to work. This is just a different opportunity for them to make money by working and using their own name, image and likeness whether it’s signing autographs, whether it’s doing commercials or ads for some company or whatever so there’s nothing wrong with that.
“And I told our players when this whole thing started to get agents, get representation and so you create opportunities for yourself. Our players last year created $3 million of opportunity for themselves by doing it the right way. I have no problem with that and nobody had a problem on our team with that because the guys who got the money earned it. There were only 25 guys on our team who had the opportunity to earn money.
“The issue and the problem with name, image and likeness is coaches trying to create an advantage for themselves went out and said, “Alright, how can we use this to our advantage?’ They created what’s called a collective. A collective is an outside marketing agency that’s not tied to the university that’s funded by alumni from the university and they give this collective millions of dollars and that marketing agency then funnels it to the players. The coach knows how much money is in the collective so he knows how much he can promise every player.
“That’s not what name, image and likeness was supposed to be. That’s what it has become and that’s the problem in college athletics right now. Every player is now saying, ‘What am I going to get?’
“My philosophy is my job is to create a platform for our players to create value for themselves and their future by becoming better people, from graduating from school and developing a career off the field and by seeing if they can develop a career on the field and seeing if they can play at the next level in the NFL. Our players made $1.7 billion in the NFL since 2010.
“We’ve created a lot of opportunity. We also have one of the highest graduation rates in college athletics. We have the most guys that graduate inside of four years. We’ve done a good job of that. But now in recruiting we have players in our state that grew up wanting to come to Alabama that they don’t commit to us unless we say we’re going to give them what somebody else is going to give them.
“My theory on that is everything we’ve done in college athletics has always been equal: Your scholarship is equal, they get equal Alston money, they get equal cost of attendance, they get equal academic support, they get equal medical attention, everything has always been equal so I told our players, I said, ‘We’re going to have a collective but everybody is going to get the same amount of opportunity from that collective.’
“You can go earn however much you want and I tell the recruits the same thing because our job is not to buy you to come to school here. I don’t know how you manage your locker room and I don’t know if this is a sustainable model because one of you folks are going to give some player that comes to our school a bunch of money to come to our school. And then you’re going to come to the game in full strut thinking I’m going to tell everybody I got that guy to come to Alabama. And then he’s not going to play and he’s going to transfer and you’re going to say, I’m never going to do this again. don’t know how it works. I don’t know how you sustain a model like that.
“I know we’re going to lose recruits because I know somebody else is going to be willing to pay them more but name, image and likeness is something that’s here and I think the more supporters we have for the University of Alabama in all sports that are willing to sponsor players, whatever you want to call it, use them in your business to help your business, that’s going to help our programs.
“The thing that I fear at some point in time they’re just going to say we’re going to have to pay players. If we start paying players, we’re going to have to eliminate sports. This is all bad for college sports. We probably have, what, 450 people on scholarship at Alabama whether they’re women’s tennis players, women’s softball players, golfers, baseball players, non-revenue sports that for years and years and years been able to create a better life for themselves because they’ve been able to get scholarships and participate in college athletics.
“That’s what college athletics is supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be something where people come and make money and you make a decision on where you’re going to go to school based on how much money you’re going to make. You should make a decision on where you have the best chance to develop as a person, as a student and as a player which is what we’ve always tried to major in and we’re going to continue to do that and hopefully there are enough people out there that want to do it and I know the consequence is going to be difficult for the people who are spending tons of money to get players.
“You’ve read about them. You know who they are. 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. But I don’t know if we’re going to be able to sustain that in the future because more and more people are doing it.
“It’s tough and people blame the NCAA. But in defense of the NCAA, we are where we are because of the litigation the NCAA gets, like the transfer portal. Every time somebody wanted to transfer they would apply for a waiver. If the NCAA didn’t give them a waiver so they could be immediately eligible they filed suit so the NCAA would back off and give them a waiver.
“They said, ‘We’re just going to make a rule where everybody could transfer.’ That’s how that happened. So if the NCAA doesn’t get some protection from litigation whether we have to get an antitrust or whatever it is from a federal government standpoint this is not going to change because they cannot enforce their rules just like Nate (Oats) said.
“We have a rule right now that says we cannot use name, image and likeness to entice a player to come to your school. Read about it in the paper. Jackson State paid a guy $1 million last year that was a really good Division I player and it was in the paper and they bragged about it. Nobody did anything about it.
“These guys at Miami who are going to play basketball there for $400,000, it’s in the newspaper. The guy (John Ruiz) tells you how he’s doing it. But the NCAA can’t enforce their rules because it’s not against the law. That’s an issue. That’s a problem. And unless we get something that protects them from litigation I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”