Nick Saban, Lane Kiffin and the rest of the SEC West coaches express their latest thoughts on NIL

ATLANTA — SEC coaches rarely agree on anything, but at SEC Media Days this week, commissioner Greg Sankey declared that there was “unanimous and unequivocal” support among the coaches to remove any booster activity surrounding NIL. 

After a year operating in a new NIL landscape, all 14 head coach coaches in Atlanta voiced their latest opinions on the most popular offseason subject. 

On3 collected a bevy of thoughts from every SEC head coach last week, so today, we’ll look at some comments by all seven coaches from the SEC West. yesterday, we detailed the thoughts from coaches in the East Division. 

Nick Saban, Alabama

Saban made headlines Tuesday when he announced that Alabama players made over “$3 million in name, image and likeness” last season. He said it was tops in the country — a detail nearly impossible for Saban to actually verify.

Still, the Tide’s head coach made it clear that Alabama is one of the “haves” and that he actively supports NIL. But he expressed concern for the well-being of the entire sport in a new world of NIL. 

“I don’t dislike name, image and likeness. I’m all for the players. I want our players to do well,” Saban said. 

“There’s got to be some uniformity and protocol of how name, image and likeness is implemented. I think there’s probably a couple factors that are important in that. How does this impact competitive balance in college athletics? And is there transparency to maintain fairness across the board in terms of college athletics? How do we protect the players? Because there’s more and more people that are trying to get between the player and the money.

“In the NFL they have guidelines for agents because the NFL Players Association sort of has rules and regulations about how they should professionally help the players. That’s something that we really want to make sure that our players are not being misguided in any way.”

As he’s done throughout the offseason, Saban brought up the issue of how NIL is being used in recruiting. 

“There’s a lot of people using this as inducements to go to their school by making promises as to whether they may or may not be able to keep in terms of what players are doing,” Alabama’s coach said. 

“I think that is what can create a competitive balance issue between the haves and have not’s. We’re one of the haves. Don’t think that what I’m saying is a concern that we have at Alabama because we’re one of the haves.

“Everybody in college football cannot do these things relative to how they raise money in a collective or whatever, how they distribute money to players. Those are the concerns that I have in terms of how do we place guidelines around this so that we can maintain a competitive balance.”

Sam Pittman,  Arkansas 

The Arkansas head coach didn’t have a lot to say about NIL, but he did note that change makes people “uncomfortable.” 

Pittman is pro NIL, saying he’s “all for it. He also add it should be “fair for everyone” and “something the kids need to earn.”  

Bryan Harsin, Auburn

Harsin had bigger fish to fry than talking much about name, image and likeness, but he did make an interesting comment that suggest Auburn won’t be as aggressive in the NIL space as many of their SEC counterparts. 

“I know there’s been a lot of conversation about name, image and likeness and the portal and all that. But we’re all about development,” he said during his opening statement.

“We’re trying to develop these guys so that when they leave, they’re ready to go on and be successful and continue what they’ve built in our program. I mean, that’s one of the best gifts you can give anybody, and I learned as a young coach and experiencing that as a player, is development. We can’t forget about that.”

Brian Kelly, LSU

Kelly addressed that he doesn’t feel like LSU is “behind” in the NIL game, saying, “I feel very comfortable, quite honestly, as I stand here talking to you that what we’re doing relative to NIL is as competitive as anybody else.

I don’t feel like we’re being out-bid by anybody. I don’t think that’s the place of NIL anyway. So if we were being out-bid, then we’re going to be out-bid if we have $50 million in our collective.

“I don’t feel hamstrung by that. I want to continue to educate with NIL. I want to be able to use the resources wisely to help promote name, image and likeness and have that available for our student-athletes when the time comes.”

Mike Leach, Mississippi State

The Mississippi State head coach wasn’t asked directly about NIL at SEC Media Days, but he was prompted to weigh in on the Nick Saban vs. Jimbo Fisher feud, which he used as an opportunity to make an amusing point about the lack of rules surrounding NIL. 

“It’s not sustainable, so something’s going to change,” Leach said. 

“Go up to your next favorite NFL guy, say, ‘Hey, I heard in the NFL, they’re going to have unmitigated free agency, 365, 24/7. And, by the way, there’s not going to be any salary cap or draft, you’re just going to have bidding wars. Just watch the expression on their face. Don’t look at anything else or write down any notes because the expression on their face will be well worth it.

“I don’t think the dust has settled. We’re in a big transition period on a number of things in college football. We got sharp guys actively trying to sort it out. I hope that it will be.”

Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss 

The Rebels’ third-year head coach has been as vocal as any coach in America regarding the need for NIL guardrails. Kiffin lamented the lack of oversight and compared the ballooning deals to Major League Baseball — with the halves versus the have-nots. 

“How do you do well with NIL? You have really good boosters,” the Ole Miss head coach said. 

“That’s how you do well at it. I’ll say what other people won’t say, as you know.

“It’s like a payroll in baseball. What teams win over a long period of time? Teams that have high payrolls and can play players a lot. We’re in a situation not any different than that.

I’m sure other people said it. I said Day 1, you legalize cheating, so get ready for the people that have the most money to get players. Now you have it. It is what it is.”

Kiffin also supports the idea that there should be some sort of salary cap, and coaches, and general managers within the program would have a role determining how to best allocate NIL funds.

“Ideally, I would think that the coach should be part of managing that. That’s how you’d want it done. But I don’t know if it will be that way or whatever. So that’s just how I would do it. That’s based off of look what happens in professional sports. There’s salary caps. The coach and the general manager/owner manage that.

“The other thing about that, too, if it’s not, say, Okay, why would you put it that way when coaches aren’t supposed to be involved in that? You have a whole other set of problems. If you have boosters out there deciding who they’re going to pay to come play, and the coach isn’t involved in it, how does that work? They could go pick who they want, pay him however much. Are the boosters going to tell you who to play, too? When they don’t play, how is that going to work out?

“Again, this is not thought out at all, in my opinion, and has created a massive set of issues which I think when people really thought about it, from a coach’s standpoint, could have predicted this was going to happen.”

Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M

No SEC coach spent more of his time talking NIL than Jimbo Fisher. 

Texas A&M’s coach oddly pretended like his offseason spat with Nick Saban never happened, while also lamenting the lack “no rules.”

“Each state has its own rules. I mean, it’s not just an NCAA thing or a national thing. Each state. For instance, in Texas, we cannot bring up NIL to a recruit,” Fisher said.  

“We can’t say it, we can’t promise. All we can say if guys on our team have it, that’s all we can say. Other states can present written contracts. They can send you a written contract to a guy. I’ve been going through that in a recruiting thing. It’s just the world we’re in. We are frustrated because there’s no unification of what happens and the way it happens. It’s a different day and time.

“Change is inevitable. That’s the rules we have to play by, so we all have to adapt and adjust. You either adapt and adjust or you don’t, one of the two.”

Like Saban, Fisher discussed the halves and have-nots in college football, but the Aggies’ head coach isn’t concerned with the competitive balance within the sport, he simply advocated for “unification of rules.”

“Just give us all the same rules in NIL. Just give us all what each state can actually do, what you cannot do. Just so we have all the same rules, you can’t complain,” Fisher said. 

“There has always been the haves and have-not’s. (NIL) is affecting it in a different way. Those are things. As long as you’ve got unification, it should be fair.

Lastly, Fisher also addressed the allegation that one of his staff members was caught on video earlier this summer telling recruits that they would be paid handsomely to come play at Texas A&M. 

“No, that’s not what he said,” Fisher explained. 

“Those guys pay down there very well, and what he meant was, he was a young guy, been there about a month, the guys behind those seats is what paid for your program. That was the donations and boosters and how he said it and how he spoke. Do we all have NIL? Yes, we do. But that’s what he was meaning. It’s a transfer thing that we say with all recruits. The guys behind those things are the guys who pay for our program, what we do, the donations. That’s what it was. He had been here one month.”