Nick Saban assesses state of college football, calls for NCAA reform to enforce laws

Alabama head coach Nick Saban spoke on the Paul Finebaum Show on Friday about what reform he would push for if he was in charge of the NCAA. The Crimson Tide’s coach explained that the NCAA was limited in their power to enforce rules, leading to the current state of college football recruiting and the rise of boosters “paying” players to play for their school.

Nick Saban on NCAA reform

Saban’s comments continued to clarify his stance on college football recruiting and the NCAA Transfer Portal — a system that Saban has been critical of as it continues to alter the way schools recruit. Saban also praised the NIL changes again and how they help players, but re-iterated that paying players to play is not the same thing as earning an NIL deal while playing.

“I think a lot of people criticize the NCAA, but because of a lot of the laws that have been passed, the NCAA really has a difficult time — if they don’t get protection from litigation — to be able to enforce some of the rules that they even have. I think that is where the transfer portal came from,” Saban said. “People had to sit out, but everybody applied for a waiver. And if they did not get a waiver, they sued. Eventually you just say enough is enough and you just pass a rule now that everybody can transfer whenever they can.

“I think NIL is good for players. I don’t think that — players should go earn what they get, which is what our players did last year and did very well — but when you start having collectives and things like that, that raise money to pay players. And then you’re talking about influencing players to go to a school in terms of what they’re going to get — I’m not sure that’s good for the game.”

Kirby Smart on tampering in college football

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart also spoke about the way boosters and tampering has become much more powerful in recruiting. While speaking with the Paul Finebaum Show as well, Smart went a different route with his stance on the changes — believing that tampering isn’t as big a deal if players are happy at their school.

“I don’t believe there’s as much tampering as people think,” said Smart. “What I think is there’s kids who grow up thinking that if it doesn’t work out here I should go somewhere else. But tampering comes from a player that’s searching somewhere else, not from a coach reaching out. Look, I’ve had kids reach out to me from other programs — call and say things, and you can’t talk to them. So I know it happens from our place out, from other places.

“So I don’t worry so much about tampering as much as I do about ‘are we doing the right thing for kids when they have adversity or things are tough that they don’t walk away.’ We had a group of 15 draft picks that all felt like they had a chance in their career somewhere, they might have left. Well, if they had left they would have missed out on a National Championship. They would have missed out on getting drafted. They would have missed out on graduating. I think those things are critical for success.”