Alabama Coach Nick Saban Says Rival School ‘Bought Every Player on Their Team’

Nick Saban has a problem with one college football program. The Alabama Crimson Tide football head coach spoke to reporters at a 50-day countdown event for the World Games in Birmingham, Alabama this week and talked about the impact name, image and likeness (NIL) has made on the game. Saban went after Texas A&M for their approach to recruiting players this offseason. 

“It’s going to be difficult for the people who are spending tons of money to get players,”  Saban said, per AL.com. “You’ve read about them. You know who they are. We were second in recruiting last year. [Texas] A&M was first. A&M bought every player on their team — made a deal for name, image and likeness. We didn’t buy one player. But I don’t know if we’re going to be able to sustain that in the future because more and more people are doing it.”

Texas A&M has the No. 1 recruiting class for 2022 behind Alabama and the defending national champions Georgia. But as NIL continues to grow, there has been some talk about how Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher got more five-star players in one class than he has his entire time with the team. However, Saban didn’t only go after Texas A&M as he also called out Jackson State whose head coach is Deion Sanders. 

“Jackson State paid a guy $1 million last year who was a really good Division I player to come to their school,” Saban said. “It was in the paper, and they bragged about it. No one did anything about it. These guys at Miami that are going to pay basketball there for $400,000; it’s in the newspaper. The guy tells you how he’s doing it. But the NCAA can’t enforce their rules because it’s not against the law, and that’s an issue. That’s a problem. Unless we got something that protect them from litigation, I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”  

The NIL is something that is still very new for college sports, and it will likely take time for the teams and the NCAA to adjust. While Texas A&M may have used NIL to its advantage, it will continue to happen until there are rules and regulations put in place for the future.