Nick Saban considers whether college football issues can be fixed in ‘immediate future'

Nick Saban said college football’s issues won’t necessarily be fixed in the immediate future. Saban, who just retired from coaching, has a unique view on the sport.

While he’s for NIL and the transfer portal, the legendary coach is of the mind there still needs to be some legislation in place. There is legislation in some states, but it’s a gray area across the country.

Basically, the goal should be to get a blanket rule set, however that happens, according to Saban.

“I don’t know about the immediate future, but I think at least there’s a lot of awareness now that we have some issues that may affect the competitive balance moving forward,” Saban said on McElroy and Cubelic. “And I do think a lot of people are listening, a lot of people are working on it. I do think we can, you know, make some progress. I think we have made progress. A: we have awareness now and then B: how do we solve the problems? 

“But I think if there’s not some kind of legislation that actually protects whoever runs college football, the NCAA, whoever it is, it’s not some kind of legitimate legislation that protects them from litigation, because that’s kind of how we got here, you know, through myriad lawsuits. And so, there has to be some protection so they can enforce their own rules, whatever we decide those rules are.”

All the eyes are on football and basketball as well. But once you zoom out from the two main sports across college athletics, you have to worry about non-revenue sports.

There are multiple factors, as Saban suggested. For example, football or basketball might need to be highly competitive to support the non-revenue sports.

Not to mention conference realignment impacts or can impact certain schools who aren’t in the Big Ten or SEC. To a lesser extent, the Big 12 and ACC.

“And you know, there has to be some kind of way that we can treat the non revenue sports and Title IX, so that that’s not an issue, you know, moving forward,” Saban said. “So it’s really complicated, but I wish that there were more people out there that knew and I did read one article this week that talks about all the issues, you know, the lawsuits, and how that’s going to impact  financial stability across the board. And how we can continue to create the kind of resources that are going to help people be successful and still create the opportunities.”