Nick Saban explains why he does not want to lean heavily on transfer portal
Nick Saban provided some interesting thoughts on the NCAA Transfer Portal during SEC Media Days.
The Alabama leader has been ready, willing and able to adapt to everything thrown at him throughout his time with the Crimson Tide. Throughout all the changes to the sport of college football, Saban has remained the constant, finding success no matter what.
Even with the advent of the transfer portal, Saban has won, won and won some more. However, the Crimson Tide head coach explained he doesn’t want to lean on the portal, opting to build his team the old fashioned way.
“Well, it really doesn’t change your day-to-day life,” explained Saban. “I think it creates a little — some management challenges and opportunities that you just have to adapt to. It is what it is. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to dislike it, but you do have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis and try to create an advantage for your team.
“We added five guys out of the transfer portal that I think will all help our team. Jahmyr Gibbs helped our team last year. We don’t want to build our team in the portal. We want to build our team with good, young talent so that we can develop a culture with those guys that’s going to help them be successful and help us be successful.”
Continuing, Saban has been satisfied with the way Alabama has approached the transfer portal thus far, but he’s hoping for a tighter system to be developed in the near future.
“If you go to the transfer portal, to me, it’s like free agency,” added the Alabama leader. “Guy needs to play, so you need to need him to play, or you shouldn’t be messing with him. And that’s the way we try to approach it and it’s worked out pretty well for us so far. Name, image and likeness is what it is. I’m all for the players making money.
“I hope we come up with some kind of system where players can have name, image and likeness opportunities and make money, and not create a competitive imbalance or inducement to go to another school.”
Alas, Saban is far from the only coach who would love to see some regulations on what’s now become college football’s version of free agency, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Time will tell what becomes of the transfer portal, but Alabama and Nick Saban will likely continue to win regardless.