Nick Saban defiantly rejects tampering criticism involving Louisville transfer Tyler Harrell

Alabama head coach Nick Saban vehemently denied allegations this week that the Crimson Tide staff tampered to acquire wide receiver Tyler Harrell out of Louisville from the transfer portal.

“We don’t tamper with anybody, so I don’t know about anything or anybody that tampered with him,” Saban said Wednesday at the Regions Tradition Pro-Am.

Louisville head coach implies tampering following Tyler Harrell transfer

Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield implied in an interview with 247Sports that Bama was working on getting the former Cardinals receiver before he entered the portal.

“I think it’s not only him, it’s happened before here,” Satterfield told 247Sports. “Last year, we had a few guys that jumped into the portal and the next day they’re announcing where they’re going. You can look at that and know that something went on before they were in the portal.”

Harrell entered the transfer portal on April 12 and 10 days later, he announced his decision to join Nick Saban at Alabama. Ten days isn’t an unusual amount of time for a player to make a choice, however, the same day the wideout entered the portal, Cardinal Authority reported, “the expectation is that Harrell will transfer to Alabama. There have been rumors of him entering the portal since the end of spring ball for Louisville on April 3.” The apparent clairvoyance from the media led the Louisville head coach to consider foul play.

On Tuesday, Florida State head coach Mike Norvell also brought up complaints about tampering with his players. Saban shared his general thoughts on the phenomenon that the NCAA has, thus far, been unable to control.

“I think it’s really hard to control third parties, whether it’s direct or indirect,” Saban said. “When you have a guy leave your program to go someplace else the day after a game, I don’t have any evidence that anything happened — and I’m not making any accusations, but it makes you wonder, I guess. But hopefully we have enough honesty and integrity out there amongst us professionally in our sport that people are going to abide by the rules.”