Nick Saban delivers epic rant on NIL, future of college football

Ahead of the finale of a season unlike any other in college football, Nick Saban is still belaboring on what needs to change in the sport’s future.

Saban made that case again to end his segment on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ in Atlanta on Monday. He once more asked for better regulation in how college sports handle name, image, and likeness, specifically in the consistency in how and how much every school can spend, to better improve the modern model.

“All I’m saying? The people out there need to know this model is unsustainable,” said Saban. “It’s not good for players.”

“Players need to get compensated, no doubt. But it has to be done in a way where, you know, in some kind of way, have competitive balance, you know, and that every school has the same thing,” Saban said. “One school can’t spend $30 million for players while another schools spending $3 million.”

With that, Saban left it up to lawmakers in Washington D.C. – although they’re having a busy day at the moment as well on Capitol Hill.

“I mean, people in Congress – I don’t care who has to get off their butt and do something,” Saban said.

This comes after weeks of many noting Saban as an ideal option as a potential commissioner of college football.

For now, there’s one last game on the field with the national title game tonight. There’ll then be an offseason where the powers that can be can once again consider issues like this one moving forward.

Saban opens up on championship nerves, other anxiety as a coach

The nerves never went away for Nick Saban.

During an appearance on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ on Monday, Saban pulled back the curtain on the anxiety he’d feel before taking the field with his team, especially ahead of a national title game.

“I think I had nerves going into every game,” Saban said. “Sometimes I was more nervous about the games that we were supposed to win, like when you’re a big favorite, but you’re playing a pretty good team. You know your team’s probably not looking at the game like you need to.

“I think all players and all coaches have anxiety when you into games like this. And I always thought as a coach, the most important thing I needed to do was manage that anxiety, because that anxiety was not going to help you perform well. To keep things simple — play in, play out, do your job, dominate your box, don’t worry about the scoreboard — all those kinds of things minimize anxiety because everybody wants to win.

“Can we focus on doing the things that we need to do to win? That was what I always tried to promote to the players. And I didn’t want to make them think that I was anxious because if they saw me nervous and anxious, then that means I don’t believe in them.”

“I never listened to music. I just kind of thought things through. I did a little stretching,” Saban said. “I tried to keep busy, but I always made notes like of what I was going to say to the team…I was anticipating what was going to happen so that we didn’t have to respond in spur-of-the-moment-type things.”