OT: Nick Saban - CFB’s Voice of Reason?
As the fabric and traditional values of college football seems to be changing daily heading into 2024 and beyond, many current and former college coaches have been commenting on the future of college athletics.
While most college football fans hold Nick Saban with at least a shred on contempt, it sounds as if he’s planning to build a soapbox of his own to defend what he feels like is the lost integrity of the sport. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10110248-former-alabama-hc-nick-saban-plans-to-speak-out-for-meaningful-change-in-cfb
Say what you will about his ethics and the years of the $EC bag-man mentality but I personally think he makes some good points. Given his tenure and success in college football, once you put away your general bias against most things SEC, he might be a good candidate to publicly deter the unregulated and monetary motivations for the current player or recruit.
So question: Do we need someone to rally the masses against the future changes to college football and if so, is Nick Saban the right person for the job?
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:51 AM ^
Meyer will always be the weasel. He even looks like one
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:07 AM ^
His only real skill was in stockpiling talent, which he mostly accomplished via throwing more money at recruits than others. He was extremely mediocre in the NFL, where access to purchasing talent is essentially equal.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:23 AM ^
Saban is a great coach as indicated by Blue@LSU's analysis, but his results at MSU, LSU, the Miami Dolphins and Alabama have been directly proportional (IMHO w/o analysis) to his talent levels.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:36 AM ^
Is there any actual evidence that Alabama under Saban was any worse than any other SEC school (or Ohio State or Florida State or Clemson or Miami, for that matter)? Or is this something we've repeated so often for so long that we just accept it as gospel?
Because I can't recall a single major scandal at Alabama that occurred on Saban's watch.
February 22nd, 2024 at 1:37 PM ^
According to Saban, he never paid players before NIL. I've never seen any proof, other than Occum's razor. Why would a 4-5* player go to Bama to sit on the bench when he could get $300k+ to go to Clemson, Texas A&M or Ole Miss and probably start sooner. It could happen, but it is highly unlikely.
Why did Rashan Gary, Jabrill or Will Johnson come to Michigan? I don't know. Perhaps we give benefits too, but in general our recruiting classes don't look like we do. Our unwillingness to open the money canon for recruits like OSU (YTOSU) also tends to back that up.
The good news is that to your point of repeating a narrative this is a court of public opinion and not a court of law. It doesn't have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
February 22nd, 2024 at 4:42 PM ^
I never said proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But even a single shred of actual evidence showing that Saban was dirty would go a long way in backing up the oft-repeated "bag man" trope about Alabama under Saban. Because I haven't seen any evidence at all.
I'm obviously not an Alabama fan, but this idea that Saban is unethical and that his success is primarily a result of his unethical practices sounds to me like the idea that Tom Brady was only good because his footballs were marginally overinflated or that we only won the national championship because of Connor Stalions' grainy smartphone videos. It doesn't hold up to even the mildest of scrutiny.
February 22nd, 2024 at 8:43 PM ^
There’s an old diary on this site, probably 15-20 years old at this point, which outlined in pretty good detail how Saban was screwing over his recruits with scholarship offers that ended up getting yanked because he routinely offered well above the limit to the tune of 20% of his roster each year. Which is not paying players, but is unethical as hell and more problematic than paying them.
February 22nd, 2024 at 3:44 PM ^
I don’t know about bagmen, but there was a story about how Alabama had as many medical retirements as the rest of the SEC combined. So he has a documented history of stretching the rules to favor his team. Maybe that’s all he did, and maybe not.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:54 PM ^
He is definitely the Palpatine of college football, but I've somewhat come around on Saban, which was admittedly made easier by the fact that we retired him.
By most measures, he is the GOAT of college coaches. Yes, it was mostly because he recruited at a higher level than anyone else, but he was merely the first and best at recognizing that that was the ultimate trump card and setting up an operation that could sustain that. There's a popular saying that amateurs talk strategy and professionals talk logistics and no one focused harder on logistics than Saban did. He definitely bent the rules to his favor and wasn't shy about changing his stance to fit which way the wind was blowing, but he did it in the name of winning games, which was ultimately what he was paid to do. And, as far as the curve of college football coaches go, he is probably a decent person. I'm not saying I adore the guy, but I have to respect the work he put in and the results.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:01 AM ^
Wait a second. So the guy who uitlized bagmen relentlessly to get the players he wanted is now going to "fix things"? He's just mad because the playing field got leveled (notice how his team's fared post NIL compared to pre-NIL).
No, Saban IMO is most definitely not the "voice of reason" on this one. He's the voice of the old guard where teams, usually in the SEC, could throw stacks of cash at players under the table and never get penalized or have anyone compete with them other than a few SEC schools for what the player was worth.
The fact that OSU has gone balls-deep in NIL while we're still deciding if we want to hold it's hand isnt an indictment of NIL. It's an indictment on our commitment to winning in this time and age.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:25 PM ^
The fact that OSU has gone balls-deep in NIL while we're still deciding if we want to hold it's hand isnt an indictment of NIL. It's an indictment on our commitment to winning in this time and age.
I am always down for going "balls deep" unless I contract herpes or might die of AIDS. Texas A&M went "balls deep" and it hurt more then helped. Ohio might grab some million dollar baby freshman but will they stay over time and does that build a team/culture?
I prefer Michigan pick and choose with some caution but have a plan that makes sense. Lets walk down the hill and go balls deep on those that will not leave for the wrong reasons.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:07 AM ^
I like Nick Saban.
Sorry, I do. I always have.
I think he is the best college football coach of all time.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:36 AM ^
Better than Henry Winkler?
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:07 AM ^
The longtime face of and arguably the architect of the status quo being blown up in court, who retired the instant someone outsmarted him, is going to fix the status quo?
Do you hire foxes to guard your henhouses, too?
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:12 AM ^
He retired the instant he got outsmarted, and also due to the fact that he was losing his near-exclusive access to all talented players. Even with his unbalanced roster (more 5 stars than the whole B1G! Amazing!) he got punked AND he was staring down the barrel of even smaller talent gaps.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:17 AM ^
With a team that wasn’t anywhere near as good as most of the teams he had at Alabama, he came closer than anyone else to beating Michigan’s best team ever. The man can coach.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:07 PM ^
He still had a substantial talent advantage in that game, and lost. He can win with better players. He's a kid playing NCAA whose team is all 99 build-a-players at every position.
February 22nd, 2024 at 2:39 PM ^
Whether this year’s Alabama team had more raw talent than Michigan’s is debatable, but I think Michigan’s edge in experience, combined with talent, gave them a better group of players than Alabama had.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:10 AM ^
"... once you put away your general bias against most things SEC, he might be a good candidate to publicly deter the unregulated and monetary motivations for the current player or recruit."
Thanks for the laugh, OP.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:15 AM ^
He's not necessarily wrong, Saban has made it clear that he only cares about Saban. That's why he would throw his little tantrums and get rules changed like satellite camps. He has no loyalty to anyone else and people will listen to him. This crazy shit can't last. You'll find out real quickly when you start playing the new college football video game and are trying to scrape cash together for your backup/future starting running back not to transfer. I know it's going to piss me off.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:31 PM ^
It's crazy, yes, but I'll roll the dice on an uncertain future over a world where Alabama, Georgia, and OSU get a disproportionate number of top recruits every year because of their overly refined "bag" technique. That was no fun. (Side note: It's still happening in Columbus, and they aren't all QBs and WRs.)
February 22nd, 2024 at 1:08 PM ^
I’m not saying he’s the model of ethical recruiting practices or he’s never hosted a recruit without a few hundos sticking out his back pocket but you can’t deny that people listen when the dude talks and his words carry weight, whether deservedly so or not. And right now, his words seem to make a lot of sense.
Fact is, the shady tactics he and most other SEC coaches used in the past is now the standard for building your roster. He’s still saying pay the players and acknowledge the benefits of NIL but shares most casual fans perspective that most players don’t make it to the NFL and need something to fall back on.
At the end of the day, a degree from the University of Alabama or Mississippi State isn’t going to blow a potential employer away during an interview but it’s a hell of a lot better than “I chased a cash offer for 3 years, learned nothing, and now I’m broke, so can I please have job?”
February 22nd, 2024 at 1:45 PM ^
There's good in the messages, but it would be ridiculous for them to be carried by someone like Saban. The hypocrisy is way too much. As far as schooling is concerned, how many SEC football players over the years lost theirs (scholarships, that is) because of poor performance? I'll bet the number isn't zero.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:11 AM ^
There are reason that coaches are jumping out of college football at an extraordinary rate. Living in the wild west might seem fun for a little bit, but when it actually starts affecting people personally the shine goes away. Who the hell wants to worry about making sure an unrational 19-20 your old is getting a six-figure salary or they're going to run off to the highest bidder. And the kid can do it as many times as he wants.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:30 PM ^
I'm not sure coaches are jumping out at an extraordinary rate. At least there are a bunch of people jumping right on in for a lot of money.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:14 AM ^
I don’t hold any contempt for Nick Saban. He proved he was the best. As Michigan fans should’ve learned during signgate, those who complain about what other schools are doing are often doing the same things themselves.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:19 AM ^
I can get on board with cheating like the other schools do as long as the state's attorney general would sue the NCAA to keep us out of trouble. It worked in the state of North Carolina and currently in Tennessee. Just keeping up with the Joneses.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:53 PM ^
I think whether or not schools paid players before NIL depended on whether the school’s administration was willing to tolerate it. I’d bet most coaches would’ve been happy to do the same if their schools were okay with it.
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:24 AM ^
Or maybe he's just sad the playing field is a little more level
February 22nd, 2024 at 11:43 AM ^
Holy shit this is exactly what I was talking about today on TKA. You can speak to his motivations all you want, but the #1 most economical thing the NCAA member institutions are in a position to offer players is an education, and they're actively devaluing that the more they promote a system where every player is a free agent every year.
What they need to do instead of regulate is incentivize.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:09 PM ^
Player contracts, transfer limits. Problem solved.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:12 PM ^
Seems like a very Bernie Madoff type strategy. Get to the top by all means necessary, then start implementing changes and being the voice of change on past unsavory business tactics.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:39 PM ^
Shockingly when it no longer benefits him Saban finds a backbone.
Harbaugh pushed for changes while a coach even if they'd hurt him. Saban waited until he got a TV job to suddenly realize there's alcohol being sold at this establishment.
I find Saban to be better than most SEC coaches in terms of awareness but fucking save me him finding Jesus now.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:43 PM ^
Yeah it's like how a lot of politicians find a conscience as soon as they're done cashing in.
Or like how old people decry all the partying young people do. Guess what, old people are young people who did a lot of partying, and then got old.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:42 PM ^
Duplicate
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:45 PM ^
I don't care who it is advocating for the future well being of the sport, as long as that person can make a difference. Current state of college football and basketball is not sustainable in any way.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:51 PM ^
Although I might not throw up in my mouth as I do when I SEE Urban Meyer in the Fox college football broadcast I still remain disgusted.
February 22nd, 2024 at 1:04 PM ^
Nick's not as charismatic as Captain Renault...
February 22nd, 2024 at 1:07 PM ^
What are the odds he's not in favor of the current system because its basically the old system, but now legal?
So everything that Alabama and LSU got to do under his tenure before NIL, where they effectively had the market cornered on top recruits, is now out in the open, above board, and for everyone to do?
My guess is there is a non-zero percent chance of that.
Same reason why Alabama and Clemson were not in favor of expanding the playoff a few years ago. They were making it every year anyway. The current system benefited them, so why would they want an expanded playoff and have to play more games. I forget what excuse they gave (isn't fair to student athletes, exam times, etc.), but that wasn't their real excuse.
February 22nd, 2024 at 1:13 PM ^
crazy that ALA football coach would be the one leading this... being one of the prime forces that pushed college football into this territory in the first place with the money being used to bring in players.
However, it makes sense. He has the voice and pedigree to speak on this topic. He's retired. He can cement his reputation even further nationally.
I hope he succeeds
February 22nd, 2024 at 1:31 PM ^
Saban's been the voice of reason a lot in his old age.
Highlighting this quote:
"I want to see the players have a great quality of life and be able to create value for themselves. But we've gone to nobody talking about education, nobody talking about creating value for their future, to talking only about how much money can I make while I'm in college.
"I think the consequence of this could come down the road when some of these guys get 28 and 29 years old that maybe they didn't prepare themselves for when they can't play football anymore, which is what you should do when you go to college."
I mean, is that not reasonable?
February 22nd, 2024 at 5:53 PM ^
What’s unreasonable is he had DECADES to use his influence to do good and instead exploited the status quo for personal gain at every single turn and then retired as soon as the corpse got too cold to keep fucking.
Any sociopath can say “think of the children”, and they do because talk is cheap.
His actions speak so loud, I can’t hear a fucking word he’s saying.
February 22nd, 2024 at 7:51 PM ^
Yeah, that seems reasonable on its face. What’s unreasonable is to suggest that the status quo of yesteryear effectively addressed the concern, or that paying players inherently makes this more problematic.
Let’s think of it another way: without NIL, players who have the talent are incentivized to jump to the pros ASAP, without graduating, because they could get a career-ending injury at any time during their senior year for which they get next to nothing in compensation. NIL allows players to make pretty damn good money while they get their education. Without NIL, going pro is the only way to make a buck off of their exceptional talents. So I can see it cutting both ways.
Ultimately, young guys will make decisions based on their priorities. Guys who DGAF about education will want to jump to the pros as soon as they can whether or not they get paid in college, but especially not if they can’t get paid in college; these guys, sans NIL, have literally no reason to stay in school- but with NIL, they do. Guys who care about education also have the adverse incentive to go pro ASAP mitigated significantly. So maybe Ol’ Nick is full of 💩, maybe just a tad bit
February 22nd, 2024 at 2:41 PM ^
Saban has nothing to contribute to the discussion more than what any average fan has to say about it.
Transfer portal and collectives have made recruiting harder? They hurt fan emotional investment in the players and potentially the sport? Thanks for the news flash.
February 22nd, 2024 at 4:48 PM ^
I dont think Nick Saban is a bad actor and I think his perspective has merit.
However, anybody who has made tens of millions over the last 40 years of college football should take a backseat.
February 22nd, 2024 at 7:40 PM ^
Nick may make some good points en route to supporting an antiquated system of patronage, but ultimately what the “lost integrity“ he’s referring to is the control coaches and institutions held over players.