Nick Saban weighs in on NCAA decision-making process in light of JMU waiver denial
One of the most fascinating recent stories in college football comes out of Harrisonburg, Virginia as the James Madison football team has been fighting behind the scenes to play in the postseason amid their current undefeated season.
The Dukes made the transition from the FCS to the FBS level last year, impressing in their first season in the Sun Belt Conference with an 8-3 finish which they’ve doubled down on this year currently sitting at 10-0. But unfortunately, last season and this season James Madison cannot participate in a conference championship game or a bowl game due to NCAA rules that do not allow teams transitioning from the FCS to the FBS to participate in postseason play for two seasons.
JMU appealed to the NCAA to reduce its transition from the FCS to the FBS to one year instead of two, a waiver that the NCAA denied on Wednesday. Which Alabama head coach Nick Saban was asked about in his most recent appearance on the ‘Pat McAfee Show.’
“I think sometimes we have rules that are the rules and people are going to force people to abide by the rules, but I won’t give an opinion on whether I think this is a good or bad thing,” Saban said.
James Madison head coach Curt Cignetti actually coached under Saban at Alabama as the Crimson Tide wide receivers coach from 2007 through 2010, as Saban did show some empathy for the Dukes and their lack of postseason participation yet again.
“But the one thing that I do think is it’s unfortunate for the players, the school, the university that they’ve worked so hard to have this success and now they’re not being allowed to participate and take advantage of what they’ve created for themselves,” Saban said. “Because I don’t quite get the significance of why it’s an important thing for them to not play or play or whatever, that’s kind of beyond my pay grade I guess.”
The NCAA being scrutinized for their decision-making has become more and more of a regularity in recent history, with their decision regarding JMU’s postseason being no different. Which led to McAfee asking Saban about how he personally deals with and communicates with the NCAA as a head coach.
“We have an opportunity if we need to, we usually try to go through the conference office and the conference sort of expresses our opinions,” Saban said. “But I think the NCAA gets beat up quite a bit over some of the things that have happened in the last three, four, five years in college football. But a lot of these things are legal issues that got decided in the courts that put the NCAA in a position where they couldn’t enforce their own rules. So they got caught in a little bit of a dilemma and that’s been a difficult management for all of us in college football actually.”
Regardless of how anyone feels about the NCAA, an undefeated team not being able to participate in the postseason seems unjust. But James Madison’s story may not be over just yet.
The Dukes could potentially participate in a bowl game if there aren’t enough .500 teams to fill 82 spots in 41 bowl games at the end of the regular season. Not to mention a recent letter revealed that a law firm engaged by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has threatened potential legal action against the NCAA on JMU’s behalf if their exclusion from bowl consideration is not reversed.