Deion Sanders and Nick Saban are 2 of the biggest names and faces in the name, image and likeness arena in college football. So during a joint interview on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” the Jackson State and Alabama coaches shared their perspective, and it quickly got into a haves and have nots discussion.

Of course, Alabama is like many Power 5 programs with the resources to form a support a collective to help concentrate funds in the NIL space. Jackson State, conversely, is still trying to find its way with resources.

The complicating factor is when Jackson State landed 5-star recruit Travis Hunter among several notable recruits who spurned bigger programs.

Both coaches were asked about their concerns around NIL.

“I think first of all, name, image and likeness is a great opportunity for players to make money,” Saban said. “They’ve always been allowed to work. This is another opportunity to use what they’ve created on their own — through their own hard work to be able to earn money. And I think that’s a really, really good thing.

“I think a couple things are a concern. We allow alumni through collectives to get involved in recruiting and other things — that’s something we’ve always guarded against in college football. I think what kind of competitive balance are we able to create if we allow that to happen — which is not going to be great for fans. The best competitive balance you can have is like in the NFL. They have rules to create competitive balance, whether it’s salary cap, difficulty of schedule, where you draft — where you pick relative to your won-loss record. Those things are important in the interest of creating a lot of good matchups on a national basis.”

For Sanders, it’s 2 different playing fields, and the first step is leveling resources.

“First of all, we can’t compete,” Sanders said. “We don’t have collectives. We don’t have anything like that. We’re trying to rally up boosters and you talk about collectives? I don’t even know the definition of a collective. In its ‘name, image and likeness,’ I’m having kids that are getting compensated, but when you talk about name, image and likeness — I haven’t seen anything on any thing. We talk about these kids making millions of dollars — what are they on? Where is the name, image and the likeness, or is it just the collectives paying these kids to participate in this or that college?