Saban the biggest cheater says "CFB Is Not 'Sustainable' with Transfer Portal, NIL Contracts"
This guy is unreal,
After talking about NIL deals and how much his players made, he then goes on to say:
""But that creates a situation where you can basically buy players. "
Link:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10032591-alabamas-nick-saban-cfb-is…
Saban was over-signing for years, then kicking kids off the team for the flimsiest of "medical" reasons. So that, combined with bagmen gave him huge numbers of elite recruits. His record wouldn't have been close to what he had now if the NCAA had put its foot down about over-signing sooner. It's not luck, but it was still cheating. Do you honestly think Harbaugh or a dozen other coaches wouldn't have accomplished the same thing with that much stock piled talent?
I feel for you when you sympathize with a well-known cheater and give him more credit for doing it. Hilarious
So let’s see: Saban pays for players.
See: PROGRAM SELLS ITSELF
Problem: contradicting statements
Solution: who the hell cares
I’ll see myself out.
April 14th, 2022 at 11:45 AM ^
A lot of people, including in the crowd that wants to see players paid, believe the current CFB/CBB system is unsustainable. It feels like we're heading to a system with players unions and salary caps.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:08 PM ^
That sure sounds a lot like the NFL.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:56 PM ^
CFB and CBB are not pure amateur sports and haven't been that way for a while. NIL has just reinforced the professional nature of those sports.
April 14th, 2022 at 11:45 AM ^
What he means is "...it creates a situation where anyone, not just us, can buy players..."
I think it's a fatally flawed design that will ultimately create more disparity, cheating, and problems, so I don't entirely disagree with him.
Is it better to bury heads in the sand and let a select few/a particular region continue to cheat?
You say this as if those are the only two options.
Stringently enforcing rules is the one I prefer, which you omitted. I'd also like to see the SCHOOLS act to get money out of their sports. Require students to actually physically go to classes. Cap coaching salaries. Make scholarships dependent on being a scholar; if you leave early and sign a pro contact, the benefit is paid back to the school to go into a scholarship fund for NON-athlete students.
Dump-trucking more money into something already highly corrupted by truck loads of money is not going to fix anything.
April 14th, 2022 at 11:46 AM ^
Saban is just upset that everyone can now do what he's done for the past 15 years. He knows the edge he has over all the programs is now over.
April 14th, 2022 at 11:51 AM ^
"Hey Nick. I hear you."
-Dabo
April 14th, 2022 at 12:58 PM ^
I don't know about "all" the programs. Those schools down there in the SEC were doing the same thing as Saban and well before he got down there. Bama just got a better return on their investment. Same could be said about Clemson vs ACC and OSU vs B1G.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:05 PM ^
I think the unsustainable aspect of this is that most institutions of higher education have a limited appetite for engaging in bidding wars for athletes to come in and provide one year of competition. Yes, I realize many big institutions make big contract offers to mercenary coaches, and a large number of them have at least implicitly allowed bagmen to operate under their noses for many years.
The concept of student athlete has taken a beating over the past few decades. With these new changes it has taken even more of a blow. It is not hard for me to imagine a lot of schools (particularly ones that have to infuse their AD with huge subsidies) just deciding it is not worth it with their best players being constantly poached and with the associated health risks. How long before a self-respecting institution like UM decides that dealing with these "collectives", as somebody else described them, is just too greasy and unbecoming? It's not too hard to imagine.
How long before a self-respecting institution like UM decides that dealing with these "collectives", as somebody else described them, is just too greasy and unbecoming? It's not too hard to imagine.
What are you suggesting that Michigan would do in that scenario? Apply for admission to the Ivy League? Drop down to DIII? Drop its football program?
I would have to imagine that any and all of the the three items you mention could be on the table. What about spinning off the revenue sports and associated assets and trademarks? A football team completely independent of the University but with a historical bond cemented by the location of the stadium within the campus area? UM gets a windfall, plus perhaps retains a minority stake in the venture. All parties can stop pretending that anybody is there to play school, however for players that qualify through the normal channels a deal could be worked out whereby the team pays their tuition in exchange for a commitment to remain on the team for four years? Best of all, the university can keep themselves untainted from having to deal with the likes of Curtis Blackwell
Universities will find it acceptable as long as it is profitable.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:13 PM ^
I read Saban’s quotes in the column and pretty much agree.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:16 PM ^
Yes. He is right in some ways. The transfer portal and, to a greater extent, the potential abuse(s) of NIL change CFB in a way where I may not like the sport or enjoy it as much. Kind of a potentially sad development.
And? My feelings in this regard have *nothing* to do with my feelings about Dabo or Saban.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:17 PM ^
Translation: same amount of players in the system with more money (NIL) directed to players, means my bag money doesn’t have the same value
Complaining because he will have to find a new way to cheat
April 14th, 2022 at 12:18 PM ^
I honestly wanted to throw up reading this, or try to find him and punch him in the mouth. The all out hypocrisy of some people is mind numbing. One of the biggest cheaters college sports has ever known is pissed that cheating is no longer cheating so he can't cheat anymore. Fuck this guy to the ends of the earth
April 14th, 2022 at 12:28 PM ^
I could see the current system leading to good players testing the waters of the portal every year to see what their value is.
I have a feeling we're going to see some "business decision" transfers in the years ahead.
We've already seen "business decision" transfers, but what we haven't seen yet is all-out free agency being directed by someone like "LaVarr Ball". I fully believe next season will start that trend when all of these players who went places for NIL don't get the playing time or exposure they feel they deserve.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:29 PM ^
Nobody wants to admit this, but Saban is correct, although you may not want to hear it from him as the source of the facts... two separate issues though.
Paying players and/or NIL was always going to decimate college football and basketball, fundamentally changing it. I predicted this all along, and in my opinion the change is not for the better - not even close. It was a bad idea from the start. Now that everything we knew would happen is actually happening, it's time to blame people like Saban (slimy or not) for pointing out the obvious truth? The NCAA couldn't/wouldn't regulate direct payments to players in back alleys, but we all recognize that if someone wins the Heisman trophy their freshman year, they should be able to get a piece of the action on jersey sales. NIL was meant to allow players to profit based on their on field performance... Makes sense, in utopia. In the real world, it is just a mechanism for scumbags to be "above board" in their scumbagginess.
The transfer portal is is similar if a little different... Sounds good - kids should be able to transfer if they want to if they are in a bad situation, or a coach leaves, or a kid just wants to move home. The NCAA had a review process in place that, in theory, allowed for review and approval of transferrs without penalty, but because it was the NCAA it was a completely opaque and subjective process. So instead of coming up with a set of actual rules and/or reasons for legit transfers, we threw our hands up into the air and said "anything goes! athletes rights! coaches can leave why can't players!" Now you get a system that everyone recognizes is highly destructive to the college football landscape that made it so unique.
Both systems have had a core change - Remove all reasonable rules, since the NCAA is both incapable and unwilling to enforce them any way, do it in the name of "justice for the downtrodden student athlete" and watch the system self destruct. Nice job, NCAA.
Why shouldn't kids be paid? Why shouldn't kids be able to transfer?
Jumping in here - sorry.
Kind of a complicated answer: yes, "kids should be paid" for the use of their name, image, and likeness. Absolutely. It *is* their name, their image, and/or their likeness. The complicated part is that this becomes a sham when some late teen or early 20s "kid" gets paid ridiculously large sums of $ as an enticement to play for the local boosters' pleasure. Sums well beyond his/her NIL's value. We can argue about real NIL "values", but that would require a way of interacting far more robust than posting to a blog. :-)
This is a college game supposedly played by college students - this is not the pros (yet). Blurring that line between student-athlete and pro-athlete is complicated.
Transferring? That one sits much easier with me - but that's one guy's opinion.
So Saban does it, it’s ok??? Check. Everyone does it, it’s not sustainable. Check. Bottom line is let Alabama win and just sit back and enjoy the ride. An abomination of words.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:45 PM ^
Besides being a douchebag, he's not wrong. The current system is unsustainable. Nobody wants to talk about the hundreds of kids screwing themselves out of scholarships because they go into the transport portal when they shouldn't. The NCAA needs to die and there be a new governing body.
Some good life lessons learned along the way, then.
And yes the NCAA needed to die 30 years ago. Alas here we are. Cheaters are mad the cheating they've utilized for (for some) decades isn't unique to their own betterment.
The current system is unsustainable.
Seems to me this is its own fix. If it goes off the rails the billion dollar industry will work it out. Trust me in America shit like this will end up on the floor of congress. Because of course it will.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:46 PM ^
NIL and the Transfer Portal are red herrings.
It's time for college football to admit that it's the developmental league for the NFL. This is good for both parties--rather than just sending under-educated high school kids into full-time athletics, it benefits everyone for the preparatory years to be at a college where athletes can learn skills that will be valuable regardless of which career they choose and whether or not they make it to the NFL.
But we're all pretending this is something else right now. That pretense has huge costs to all parties involved. If college football (and I'm not saying the NCAA because I don't believe that organization has much of a future in college football) and the NFL don't embrace this, than the XFL or USFL or some other organization (sort of like the G-League) is going to start taking market share, which I believe would be bad for everyone.
Saban is right: the current system is unsustainable. He's just wrong about what the problem is.
That pretense has huge costs to all parties involved.
I dunno, it's been great for the NCAA, the conferences, the networks, and a few unscrupulous programs.
And since players have been getting paid well before NIL, the pretense hasn't even been serving its original purpose: to keep money out of their hands. At this point amateurism is just a comically aged facade being taped together to appease some knuckleheads who believed it was a thing as kids and find reality unbearable, so they're gorging on propaganda so transparently cheap that everyone else can see these fans are being held in open contempt.
When someone talks about NIL and says, "I can't stand to see the sport devolve into a few corrupt, greedy programs buying championships like it's a cutthroat business," they're actually saying, "I'll believe any lie, no matter how absurd, as long as it gives me cause to continue believing college football isn't already a few corrupt, greedy programs buying championships like it's a cutthroat business. Anything so I can keep looking away from reality like a delusional lunatic, even lies from the very people who made it that way."
I feel like you understand the problem but do not want to make the correct conclusion. It is true that there is a lot of corruption in big-time college athletics. But you seem to be saying that customers (fans) will just have to accept the new reality. But I think there is a very real possibility that these changes could spell the beginning of the end of fandom for a lot of current aficionados. In the past we could at least pretend that we as students and fans had something in common with the players, i.e. we all loved the University of Michigan. When a NIL deal with Big Ballerz Media is what secures a one year "commitment" from a player I feel that a lot of the attachment people feel for the college teams may start to weaken.
I guess the problem is moving a critical mass of fans that affects the team revenues. It's easier for the 130 teams to move together to do something. It's much more difficult to do that with 130*100,000 fans. Even if a critical mass forms, a set of new fans who have not been involved before cancels them out. so even if you feel disgusted by the whole shebang and decide to step away, there are 10 new fans, say from the families of the incoming freshmen, who cover up that shortfall and then some.
Respectfully. I am not so sure that this is the case about a set of new fans "canceling out" the disenchanted ones.
"But you seem to be saying that customers (fans) will just have to accept the new reality. But I think there is a very real possibility that these changes could spell the beginning of the end of fandom for a lot of current aficionados."
You think that a critical mass of college football fans would stop watching because players are getting paid for their labor and have freedom to select the team the play for? Delusional.
April 14th, 2022 at 12:52 PM ^
Not that it would ever fly, but I think the ideal solution would be that a player can accept NIL money or make free use of the transfer portal but can't do both.
Yep, I think that would probably never fly. :-(
Also, I think both elements need some *serious* attention paid. By whom? I don't think there exists a single organization that has the breadth, the expertise, or the regulatory clout to fix the issues across all jurisdictions.
This is a mess.
My solution to the non NIL part.
I think the transfer portal should only happen twice a year for a few weeks. Also, move signing day back to just February. Then you put one of the transfer windows the first 3 weeks of January. That gives high school kids a real look at the schools roster before they sign. Also, time to take a visit or switch schools before the signing period starts. Put the other one in June after spring practices are done so kids have less of an immediate knee-jerk reaction and jump in the portal.
That might work, actually...
LOL, when he watched ATM go buy the #1 class and flat out smoke bama in recruiting, he cries.... As money gets bigger he is going to lose recruits to bigger money schools. When buying is legal, big money wins out. Buying was illegal so it was who was willing to skirt the rules and be shady... Now what they are doing is out front and others realized how they can out bama bama...
Too bad aTm, Texas and Ou left the big12.. they could just dominate while turning a deaf ear to Bama...and the sec...
I wonder if we could apply a bit of rationality here. He has the biggest voice in the sport, and he's saying there is an issue that most sports fans agree with. The easy out is to say he's mad at A and M etc, but I think it's useful to have the most powerful coach pointing out major issues in the sport.
I listened and have pearls clutched accordingly. If Saban gets out recruited again next year ill need a string of replacements.
Current National Champion coaches at basketball and football:
Kirby Smart and Bill Self.
NCAA doesn’t care
He would be right if he were a group of 5 coach or a clean power 5 but since hes one of the dirtiest, has perhaps bought more players than anyone else, then this is clearly him griping about his advantage from being a dirty cheat going away as the cheat is now legalized and more people will be doing it. Fuck that guy and all his undeserved success.
Yes "you can", unlike the old system where "he did"
Do we really want to be the guys whom, when someone else wins, screams that they must be cheating? I’d rather just try to do a little better and beat them than whine that they must be breaking the rules somehow.
Do we really want to be the guys whom, when someone else cheats, goes 'ah shucks they got us' and go home with our tail between our legs to prepare honorably for our next loss in a rigged system.
Trumper, huh?