Nick Saban Addresses Texas A&M Comments: "I've said everything I'm going to say about this"

The head coach of Alabama football elaborated on his stance on NIL and his direct addressing of Texas A&M and other institutions on Tuesday.

Author:
Joey Blackwell
Publish date:
May 31, 2022 12:40 PM EDT

DESTIN, Fla. — The annual SEC Meetings opened with a bang Tuesday morning as Alabama head football coach Nick Saban's first question from the media was in relation to his recent spat with Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher.

Back in May at an event promoting the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Saban noted that he believed Fisher and the Aggies bought their entire recruiting class by utilizing NIL collectives. Fisher responded the following day in an impromptu press conference, condemning Saban and his comments.

On Tuesday, a reporter covering Texas A&M asked Saban about his comments regarding the Aggies and Fisher, to which Saban responded the following:

"I didn't really say that anybody did anything wrong," Saban said.

After the reporter doubled down on his question to Saban, the Crimson Tide head coach repeated his response.

"I didn't say that anybody did anything wrong," Saban said. "OK? I've said everything I'm going to say about this."

In the week following the back-and-forth indirect exchange between Saban and Fisher, Saban stated he made a mistake in mentioning specific institutions. Along with Texas A&M, Saban mentioned the University of Miami as well as Jackson State, which signed No. 1 overall prospect in the 2022 class, cornerback Travis Hunter.

Saban was once again apologetic on Tuesday regarding him mentioning specific institutions by name. He then proceeded to discuss how he believes that NIL-related legislation could alleviate many of the problems that college athletics are currently facing.

“I should have never mentioned any individual institutions,” Saban said. “I said that before, but some kind of uniform Name, Image and Likeness standard that supports some kind of equitable, national competition I think is really, really important in college athletics and college football. And we’ve always had that whether it’s equal scholarships, equal Alston money — you know, whatever it might be. So that’s kind of point one.

“Point two is we need some kind of transparency in Name, Image and Likeness deals to verify that players are doing what they need to do to have the opportunity to make money in Name, Image and Likeness. Believe me, I’m all for players making as much as they can make. OK? But I also think that we’ve got to have some uniform, transparent way to do that. Our players did extremely well last year in Name, Image and Likeness because they got agents, they had representation, they had people who wanted them to actually endorse something for them, and they did very, very well. And it’s public record and you can see how well they did."

For the better part of the last year, Saban has addressed how he would like to see changes to the current NIL format. Many critics of the current structure have equated NIL to a 'Wild West' of sorts, where there are far too few rules and regulations — as well as a far-from-sustainable model of monitoring — that allow groups such as collectives to form and pay players directly.

Saban said he believes athletes need protection from signing potentially troublesome deals, and the current model doesn't offer that protection.

"I think that also student-athletes need some sort of protection from unfair Name, Image and Likeness representation or deals," Saban said. "You could have a player — and we’ve had this happen to us in the past — that thinks he’s signing one thing and he signs something else and gives up his freedom of choice in the future as to who represents him. You know, we have no oversight right now for players when it comes to this and I also think that boosters should continue to be precluded from recruiting, including use of Name, Image and Likeness offers prior to enrollment."

Saban finished his addressing of NIL by summarizing his observations.

“So that’s basically what I have to say about some of the things that I think we need to do from a college football perspective," Saban said. "This is not about Alabama. This is not about what’s best for us. I just hope we can sort of put some guardrails on all this. I read something in the Wall Street Journal that said what we’ve done in college football — and I’m paraphrasing here — is put a canoe on top of our SUV to go to the lake, didn’t tie it down, took off and just hoped for the best, and I think that’s where we are right now. I think it’s a great thing for players to have the opportunity. They’ve always been able to work. I’ve always encouraged this whole Name, Image and Likeness thing for the players to be able to earn money.

“It’s just something that I think we need to make sure that we have a uniform way to have equitable competition, it’s transparent, we protect the student-athlete and boosters have never been involved in recruiting and hopefully we’ll not allow that to happen relative to this circumstance.”

After Saban's lengthy answer, the reporter asked Saban directly if he believed Fisher lied about his program not utilizing collectives to lure recruits into signing with Texas A&M.

Instead of answering the question directly, Saban dodged with his answer.

“I have no problem with Jimbo,” Saban said. “I have no problem with Jimbo at all.”