Listen, you can’t get a 2-way run on this thing. Pick a side and take a stand.
The devil you know doesn’t care about the devil that may be.
Alabama coach Nick Saban, king of all things college football, just wrapped up another No. 1 recruiting class. But instead of lauding the process that landed 9 — that’s not a misprint, NINE — 5-star recruits and how it could help the Tide catch Georgia, he decided to take on the elephant in the room.
Only there’s 1 teeny-weeny problem: You can’t feed it with 1 hand and whip it with the other.
Earlier this week, Saban was at the Alabama Football Coaches Association convention, an annual event where high school coaches from around the state gather to talk shop and trade ideas. Saban graciously speaks every year to an audience at the association, and this time the subject moved to — what else? — the impact of NIL on college sports.
Saban has been fighting this battle for 2 years now, with a combination of smart and useful assessments, and with downright petty jealousy (hello, Jimbo). This time, according to 2 different Alabama high school coaches contacted by Outkick, he took it in another direction.
This time, he gave examples of a player in the transfer portal asking for a specific NIL deal, and of a high school recruit doing the same.
The portal player asked for $500,000 and a spot for his girlfriend in the Alabama Law School. The recruit asked for $800,000 to sign.
Saban’s response, according to Outkick: “This ain’t the school for you then, because it’s not fair for those that are already here for someone to come in and ask, who hadn’t played a snap yet, and proved yourself on that level, already demanding money.”
We stop here, briefly, to belly laugh.
If Saban believed either of those players was critical to the Tide catching Georgia, both would’ve gotten what they wanted.
Period. Full stop.
If you think Alabama just magically flipped 5-star recruits late in the recruiting process because of Saban’s magnetic personality — while players love him, they love money more — you’re the same person who thinks Saban will coach until he’s 80.
Later in the speech to the AFCA, Saban admitted that NIL played a role in the recruitment of “some” players in his No. 1-ranked recruiting class. I’m going way out on a limb and taking a stab in the dark, and saying all 9 of the 5-star recruits landed by Alabama — a record number of 5-stars landed by 1 school in the history of recruiting — received an NIL deal.
To say nothing of the 18 4-star players signed by Alabama.
Look, Saban isn’t unique in this scenario. From Day 1 of NIL, Georgia coach Kirby Smart declared it was “unsustainable” and wasn’t what anyone wanted college football to be.
LSU coach Brian Kelly compared it to NFL free agency and negotiating professional contracts. The only difference: There was no salary cap, and players can walk away at any time.
And let’s not forget Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who not long ago said if paying players was where the sport was headed, he didn’t want any part of it.
Yet here we are, and I know this is going to shock everyone, but guess who just polished off top 10 recruiting classes? Alabama (No. 1), Georgia (No. 2) and LSU (No. 6) — and Clemson came in at No. 11.
I don’t really need to explain that every 1 of those programs used NIL collectives as a way to land recruits.
Forgive me if I scoff at Saban’s holier-than-thou stance of turning down a defensive back because he wanted $800,000. Or how he lost a player in the portal because he wouldn’t pay him and help the player’s girlfriend.
All players deserve the NIL deals. It’s their name, image and likeness — and unique athletic ability — universities use to land those billion-dollar media rights deals that pale in comparison to the tradeoff players get with a scholarship, professional development and a $5,500 stipend.
While there are philosophical arguments to be had about about NIL and its place — they still rage inside many programs and universities — it’s not going away. The last thing college football needs is the most prominent figure in the game (player or coach) playing both sides of the fence.
A year ago, Saban threw a public tantrum about Texas A&M, and how the Aggies “bought” their entire record-setting recruiting class. It wasn’t that Texas A&M understood the NIL rules better, or worked harder, or that their collectives spent more money.
A&M was cheating.
Saban never directly said Texas A&M was cheating. But you don’t use loaded words like “bought” and proclaim “is this what we want college football to be,” without taking direct aim at the program that unseated you from your annual perch atop the recruiting rankings.
And — ta-da! — look who’s on top again, complete with yet another contrived double-talk message about the ills of NIL. We’ve gone from the strongest voice in college football alleging old-school pay for play at an emerging rival, to a year later admitting he did the same damned thing for “some.”
Some.
If Saban truly wanted to take a stand against NIL, he’d stand up at the SEC spring meetings in Destin in May and draw the line. Alabama will not pay a dime for high school recruits from this day forward.
That, or stop feeding NIL with 1 hand and whipping it with the other.
Matt Hayes is a national college football writer for Saturday Down South. You can hear him daily from 12-3 p.m. on 1010XL in Jacksonville. Follow on Twitter @MattHayesCFB
