Nick Saban clarifies comments on Texas A&M, NIL: 'It was not my intention to really criticize anyone'

The minute Alabama coach Nick Saban’s comments regarding Texas A&M and NIL showed up on social media Wednesday night, the college football world stopped to watch what came next. Since then, Saban has apologized — and he again attempted to clarify his comments Saturday during the PGA Championship.

During a PGA Championship “MegaCast” on ESPN with Joe Buck and Michael Collins, Saban further opened up about what he said during an event in Birmingham. He said Texas A&M “bought every player on their roster,” which led to a fiery press conference from Aggies coach Jimbo Fisher on Thursday.

Saban reiterated his stance on NIL and how it’s a good thing for players, but continued to call for “guardrails” to help create “parity.”

“It was not my intention to really criticize anyone,” Saban said. “I was just trying to make a point about the state of college football and college athletics right now. I think we have some unintended consequences of name, image and likeness in some of the circumstances that we’re in right now. The spirit of competition is what has made sports popular, created a lot of fan interest.

“But we’ve always had guardrails on rules that govern competitive sports to create parity, and I think the situation that we’re in now in college football, we don’t have that. There’s a lot of Division I schools that aren’t going to be able to do the same things that other Division I schools can do to create opportunities for players in some kind of way. I’m all for the opportunities for the players, but some way, we’ve got to create a balance in all that.”

This isn’t the first time Nick Saban has talked about parity in college football

Saban has talked about parity in college football a few times this offseason. Earlier this month, he joined The Paul Finebaum Show and talked about how that’s good for the game.

“One of the things I’d like to be able to see us work back to is, everything in college football has always had parity,” Saban said. “Same with scholarship, same with academic support, health care, whatever it is. I don’t think we have that balance right now, which could affect the parity of college football and college athletics as a whole. I know we got a lot of good people working on it, and I’m sure they’ll come up with a good solution for us.”