Steve Spurrier reacts to Nick Saban-Jimbo Fisher feud, offers suggestions to fix NIL and College Football Playoff
By Keith Farner
Published:
Steve Spurrier keeps on a pulse on issues around college football, and over the weekend weighed in on name, image and likeness issues.
Spurrier, who was in Memphis, Tennessee on Sunday to receive the Liberty Bowl’s Distinguished Citizen Award, said he favors a different approach to what’s used in today’s college football. After all, Spurrier is well known for quips about rivals like Florida State, and the illegal, at the time, NIL deal of sneakers from a sporting goods store.
“I don’t like the idea of buying the players before they get there or giving them money before they get there. My suggestion would be go back to the original recruiting rules,” Spurrier said, per the Commercial Appeal. “After a player gets to a college, he does very well, he can do a deal and endorse. If something wants to pay him a bunch of money, then it’s perfectly all right. But they have to come and play one year, and then, you know, it’s a free country.”
Spurrier also took a chance to react to the biggest story of the offseason in the SEC between Alabama’s Nick Saban and Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher. Spurrier applauded Alabama for “doing it the right way” and said that feud will be a short-term storyline.
“I didn’t think Coach Saban had accused him of cheating. He just said he bought most, if not all of his recruiting class,” Spurrier said. “Jimbo didn’t like it, I guess. It’ll blow away. I guess maybe it’ll come back up when they play each other this year, but it’s pretty old news.”
As for the College Foootball Playoff, Spurrier is in favor of 16 teams.
“I used to say eight, but now I would say 16. The top teams are still probably going to win, but we can use all the bowls around the country to get those games and you work it all down,” Spurrier said. “They have 64, I think, in baseball. Sixty-eight in basketball have a shot at it. Football, we just have 4 of the big teams, and it’s about (the) same ones every year. I’d like to see them expand it a bit.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
