Alabama head coach Nick Saban spoke to the media during the opening day of the SEC’s 2017 spring meetings in Destin, Fla. Despite having the opportunity to soak up the sun on the lovely beaches of beautiful Destin this week, Saban appeared to be in full season mode, ready to fire off regarding some of the topics up for debate during the league’s annual meetings.

The topic that got Saban the hottest was the pending changes that may be coming to the SEC’s graduate transfer rules.

Here’s what the Alabama coach had to say after asked to share his thoughts on graduate transfers:

“What is the intent of the rule to start with? I think the intent of the rule to start with was the fact that somebody was changing schools for academic reasons,” Saban said. “That was the intent of the rule as I understood it. That’s why we allowed people to transfer to other places. Now, that doesn’t matter. So that’s not the intent of the rule anymore. I’ve never been in favor of free agency before in our league, I don’t think that’s a good thing, I don’t think I’ll ever be for it.

“I think we would benefit, we would benefit as much as anyone in our league if you said you could transfer (without having to be concerned with academics.) Kentucky’s got a good player, we’ll go see if we can get him to come to Alabama. Why would we want that? Why do we need that? How does that help the integrity of what we are trying to do as a conference or a league? I’m not for free agency in our conference.”

Saban on the new NCAA rule preventing schools from hiring high school assistants to a college’s support staff:

“If someone didn’t give me an opportunity as a graduate assistant, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It’s a very difficult profession to get started in, so I’m always for that.”

Saban on the new early signing period:

“Having it in December is way better than having it before (prospects’) senior year. So if we are going to have an early signing period, this is the best date to have but the fear is, it will become the signing day. By having an early signing day, everything revolves around Dec. 20-22, whenever it is, and everyone wants to take visits during the season — which is not the best time to take visits.”