Even before Nick Saban trotted into esteemed Bama halls, taking the program to the pinnacle of success, there were still accusations that players were being paid, even though it wasn\u2019t allowed. In 1999 and 2000, Bama was embroiled in a massive controversy when a wealthy booster gave $150,000 to five-star defensive lineman Albert Means in an attempt to sway his commitment. The aftermath, though, wasn\u2019t so pretty.<\/p>\n
The scandal came to light when one of Bama\u2019s assistant coaches confessed and cooperated with the NCAA and the FBI. Because of those infractions, the Tuscaloosa program received a 2-year Bowl ban, along with 5 years of probation. Saban arrived in 2007 and won six titles, but questions about his recruiting methods never fully disappeared. They re-emerged after Nick Saban testified before Congress on Wednesday, urging sweeping structural changes to college football and how NIL would harm the sport. But a radio show host has his doubts.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Clown Prince Nick Saban was at it again. Talking about how NIL\u2019s the death of college sports,\u201d prominent radio show host Craig Carton, who was inducted into the New York State Broadcasters Association\u2019s Hall of Fame in 2024, said on his podcast. \u201cBecause he\u2019s claiming that if you don\u2019t spend up to $20 million a year in your football program, you can\u2019t compete.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always funny to me when the guys who are against the legal spending on talent did it illegally for so many years, are now bemoaning the fact that every team has the ability. Nick Saban is still of that era of successful, well-known coaches, whether it be football or basketball, who got away with bloody murder by paying guys under the table when it was not legal to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the thing: Money has always been part of recruiting. NIL did not create the issue. It simply brought it into the open. The new bill (The Protect College Sports Act, which was the outcome of a long negotiation between between Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (Washington), would create nationwide rules for NIL deals, transfers, recruiting, and athlete eligibility. And during his testimony, Saban shared a number that caught people\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
The former Alabama head coach told the Senate that the Tide\u2019s NIL spending grew from about $2.7 million to roughly $7 million, then to around $10 million, and eventually climbed to nearly $24 million. He also argued that college sports need guardrails because such growth cannot continue forever.<\/p>\n
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\u201cNow you have schools that have close to $40 million rosters,\u201d Saban said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA young person should not be trapped in a bad situation. But unlimited transfer freedom, combined with pay-for-play incentives, has created something very close to unlimited free agency without contracts, without rules, and without stability. That makes it harder to build teams and harder to develop young people.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Saban\u2019s own recruiting controversies, there aren\u2019t many, but coaches like Jimbo Fisher have surely hit back against Saban on occasions.<\/p>\n
In May 2022, Saban accused Fisher of buying every player on his Texas A&M roster through NIL to secure the No. 1 recruiting class. In response, Jimbo Fisher called<\/a> Saban a \u201cnarcissist.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cThe narcissist in him doesn\u2019t allow those things to happen \u2014 it\u2019s ridiculous \u2014 when he\u2019s not on top. And the parity in college football he\u2019s been talking about?\u201d Fisher said in 2022. \u201cGo talk to coaches who have coached for him. You\u2019ll find out all the parity. Go dig into wherever he\u2019s been.\u201d<\/p>\n That \u2018dig into\u2019 part was something everyone construed out of context. Was Fisher pointing to Saban\u2019s own covert acts behind Bama curtains?<\/p>\n Why are many perceiving Saban\u2019s acts as hypocritical?<\/p>\n That 2022 feud is important today because it sits at the center of the current debate. People who support Saban\u2019s view would argue that he was warning people about a problem that has only grown larger since then. Critics, though, see something different.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n For them, college football\u2019s richest programs benefited from financial advantages long before NIL became legal, and now some of those same programs want stricter rules. Carton\u2019s criticism follows that line of thinking.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re telling me that you can\u2019t take 20 million dollars out of a $6 billion slush fund and use it on a net positive revenue-producing sport,\u201d Carton added. \u201cAnd it\u2019s every school in the SEC that has, on average, about six billion dollars. Endowment has the ability, if they so choose, to compete tomorrow for a national championship. This is not about whether or not you have the ability to do it. These schools are making the decision not to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, Saban is endorsing the Protect College Sports Act and has made it clear his reasons to do so. Currently, both the Big 10 and the SEC are vehemently opposing the bill, as many of its provisions could pose governance challenges. One key issue is the \u2018Lane Kiffin rule,\u2019 which prohibits coaches from switching teams midseason. But without a working college football calendar, the whole thing just looks unrealistic.<\/p>\n Trending Articles<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The post “Paying Guys Under The Table”: Nick Saban Faces Accusations From Radio HOFer<\/a> appeared first on EssentiallySports<\/a>. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even before Nick Saban trotted into esteemed Bama halls, taking the program to the pinnacle of success, there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1607,2662,186703,399,53061,398,396,397,9534,1606,298694,99],"class_list":["post-687682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-craig-carton","tag-football","tag-jimbo-fisher","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-nick-saban","tag-nil","tag-radio-show-host","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}