Nick Saban on Trump's college sports body: 'I don't think we need a commission'

Nick Saban is being considered to help lead President Donald Trump’s planned commission on college sports, but the former Alabama head coach and seven-time national champion doesn’t seem to think a formal body is necessary.

“I know there’s been a lot of stuff out there about some commission or whatever. I don’t think we need a commission,” Saban said at his Nick’s Kids golf tournament.

“I’ve said that before. We know what the issues are. We just have to have people who are willing to move those and solve those and create some solutions for some of those issues.”

He added: “I’m all for being a consultant to anybody who would think that my experience would be beneficial to helping create some of those solutions.”

Saban’s comments mirror those he made to The Paul Finebaum Show, when he wondered aloud whether such a commission was actually needed.

“First of all, I don’t know a lot about the commission. Secondly, I’m not sure we really need a commission,” Saban said.

He added: “I think that a lot of people know exactly what the issues are in college football and exactly what we need to do to fix them. The key to the drill is getting people together so we can move it forward.”

This month, it was reported that President Trump was considering the creation of a federal commission to look into the state of college sports, and that Saban was being floated as a potential co-chair of the body.

The group is expected to include college sports “stakeholders”, businessmen with “deep” connections to college football, and “perhaps, even a former coach and administrator,” according to Yahoo Sports.

If it goes ahead, the commission would investigate the general college sports landscape, including transfer portal usage, booster payments to players, athletes’ employment status, and even the composition of conferences and their media contracts.

Saban met with Texas Tech board chairman and billionaire booster Cody Campbell, the other man reputedly in line to co-chair Trump’s prospective commission, per reports.

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