Nick Saban and the government. You want to talk about a Mount Rushmore of the most hated people imaginable? For a lot of people that follow college sports, the combination of those things is about as appealing as gas station sushi.
The greatest coach of all-time meeting with the greatest wasters of taxpayer money of all-time. To their credit, their meeting is in an effort to fix some of the problems facing the world of collegiate athletics. Saban gave some insight to the growing concerns over NIL, divulged the NIL budget escalations at Alabama and pontificated on how sustainable this entire system is for the future of college sports.
This will shock you, but people didn’t like it. Not because what he was saying wasn’t accurate or helpful. People didn’t like it because it was Nick Saban.
The greatest coach of all-time weighing in on the sport he dominated for decades? How dare he. Twitter said he bought recruits with Dodge Chargers while monopolizing talent and five-star recruits like a hoarder with years of trash and trinkets on a TLC show. Clutch pearls. Cry in social media echo chambers. Hell, yell into the abyss until you’re blue in the face.
He’s still right about what he said.
People aren’t mad at the message. They’re mad at the messenger. Nick Saban, one of the biggest villains in college football history, can not be a protagonist in this story.
None of that changes the core of what Saban was talking about, and again, none of it makes it any less true. The stubbornness and mental gymnastics to convince yourself otherwise is pretty wild. This model isn’t sustainable. Not every program can afford to keep up with the Jones’ year in and year out.
Teams like Oregon, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech will be able to every year. Others will be able to pass the hat to the right people once every few years and buy a roster to compete. But, a majority of teams at the Power Four level will not be able to. Almost no one from the Group of Six level will be able to. Their programs will become a minor league system of free agency that premier programs can pluck talent from at their will.
Still, I get it. People don’t want to hear the one percent complain about the good of the whole. Just like people don’t want to hear billionaires complain about taxes, people don’t want to hear Nick Saban speak about fairness and competitive balance.
He’s still right about what he said.
So, what’s the solution? It’s probably not as simple as being just one thing. There are probably several things that need to change in order to find solutions to this issue, or issues. And, that needs to happen because this isn’t sustainable. If we need another messenger to deliver that message, then so be it. If it’s Curt Cignetti, Kirby Smart or Vol4Lyfe42069 on Twitter, then fine.
Just fix the issues. Because there are issues. And, no amount of crying on social media and yelling at the clouds about a former coach is going to change that.
