Ross Dellenger plays down Nick Saban-Jimbo Fisher feud

The hot topic in Destin, Florida during the SEC’s annual spring meetings isn’t NIL, the transfer portal, or even restructured conference scheduling. Instead, the Jimbo Fisher and Nick Saban war of words are still at the tip of everyone’s tongues two weeks after the fact.

Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger joined Paul Finebaum live from Destin Wednesday to discuss his take on the whole debacle, but instead of playing up to the hype – Dellenger shot the whole situation down, saying it’s something that happens all the time in athletics and has been blown way out of proportion.

“I mean, the mudslinging is pretty normal among coaches,” Dellenger told Finebaum. “I mean that one was a little obviously more public in the stature of those coaches, but it seems like every coach at some point has has told a reporter, the coach from School B says School A cheats, well guess what? School A says school B cheats. That seems to happen everywhere.

“You’re always at a school that doesn’t cheat and everybody else cheats. That’s just kind of how it is. So no, I wasn’t too surprised to hear that come out.”

Since every SEC football head coach is in Destin for the meetings, that means Saban and Fisher will be forced to be in the same room, and that already looks to be the case. According to the Texas A&M coach, the two allegedly have nipped the rivalry in the bud and are ready to move on to more pressing matters.

“It’s over with, we’re done talking about it,” Fisher said via On3’s Jesse Simonton. “We have a lot more pressing needs than our arguments. 

“Put a bow on it,” Fisher later said. “Double-knotted.”

When speaking on the subject himself, the Alabama head coach clarified that he didn’t think that he said anybody did something wrong, and that he should have kept individual names and schools out of his comments.

“I didn’t say anybody did anything wrong,” Saban said. “I’ve said everything I’m going to say about this. I should have never mentioned any individual institutions. I’ve said that before.”

Following the SEC spring meetings, the next time Fisher and Saban will be together in a public capacity will be during media day over the summer. After that, however, the next time they’ll be together will be during the highly anticipated battled between the Aggies and Crimson Tide on Oct. 8.