Athletic directors, coaches react to Nick Saban commentary on NIL, Texas A&M

Following Nick Saban’s rant about Texas A&M and the new era of recruiting with NIL, many are still wondering what drove the Alabama head coach to that point. He said the Aggies and Jimbo Fisher bought their 2022 recruiting class. Fisher, now famously, suggested it was Saban’s “narcissism.”

ESPN’s Pete Thamel recounted to Paul Finebaum on Thursday that the reaction from around college football was like unlike any other.

“If I could only count the number of popcorn emojis, the number of anything going on in college football today, the number of administrators, coaches, assistant coaches who’ve checked in,” Thamel said. “I mean, the entire college football world is agape right now at this high-level like, blood feud.”

The SEC and Greg Sankey issued public reprimands of both coaches for violating conference bylaws.

The ESPN staff caught up with several athletics directors and coaches after Fisher’s response press conference. They shared their anonymous takes about what’s really at the source of Nick Saban’s ire towards Fisher and Texas A&M’s recruiting tactics.

ADs, coaches discuss Nick Saban’s motive behind A&M rant

SEC athletic director: “NIL has caused a lot of confusion and consternation, and as a league, we’ve got to handle issues like this, hopefully not in the public eye.”

Big Ten assistant coach: “​​A lot of us were just talking about it that we thought it was a call to arms. The way that they’ve been doing it isn’t really holding up in this new age, and that’s kind of what we saw it as. Everyone across the country is calling a booster to step up and that’s what I thought it was.”

Power 5 head coach: “Nick’s point, albeit valid, he’s smarter than that. He usually doesn’t put his hand in the hornet’s nest. There was no reason to cross the line like he did. All he had to do is be macro and vague. Something happened there. Jimbo did something, and the professor did not like what the pupil did.”

Power 5 AD: “Everybody knows Nick is very smart. There’s a reason he’s doing this. It’s almost like for him to do this, A&M is a serious threat or even bigger. I think he sees this as an existential crisis. He can see it, and unless something changes, that’s his way of saying you guys gotta do something. I think he sees this as man, this gap could potentially close, and he’s trying to ring the alarm.”