Nick Saban weighs in on how to handle NIL guardrails, calls for government oversight

Alabama head coach Nick Saban has turned into one of the most prominent voices discussing NIL guidelines and how to fix college football. As discussions continue, he admits that he does not have all the answers about how to proceed but wants leaders to come together in finding a solution.

While talking to the media at the annual SEC meetings, Nick Saban made a plea to create NIL guiderails and seek government assistance in enforcement of the agreed rules.

“I think right now everybody is looking for solutions,” said Saban, via On3’s Jesse Simonton. “Every conference is looking for a solution. I’d assume that the NCAA continues to look for solutions. And again, I think the solution is, how do we still have equitable, national competition, which has always been the goal. I also think that we all want to continue to benefit the players. I’m certainly not opposed to benefitting the players every way we can, but also in a model where the player continues to stay focused on what they need to do to create value for their future.

“You go to college so that you prepare yourself for the day you can’t play football. You see if you can develop a career as a football player and play at the next level. So there’s a certain amount of focus that needs to stay in place for you to be the best version of yourself in doing that. I think every conference – conference commissioners, university presidents – I think everybody’s trying to come up with the best possible solution and I think there’s a lot of good people there that have a lot of good ideas. Hopefully we’ll be able to get something done. But I also think that there may be some reason for the federal government to create some standard.”

Nick Saban on NFL model

Nick Saban previously mentioned a change which would take college football closer to the NFL model of contracts and free agency. He doubled down on that as a potential option while discussing the need for government intervention in this new era.

“As soon as you start buying people, and as soon as you don’t have contracts – then look at the NFL model, they have contracts, they have free agency, they have a players’ association,” said Saban. “The players’ association monitors the agents so the players are protected. So a lot of these things, it’s never existed and never really needed to exist in college football. But as soon as you start paying people or people start earning money, then you’ve got to start thinking about how do we control those things in a way that creates uniform balance for everybody.”