Everything Alabama coach Nick Saban said at SEC Spring Meetings

Alabama coach Nick Saban is currently down at the SEC Coaches Meetings, also known as the SEC Spring Meetings, in Destin (Fla.) this week. On Tuesday morning, the seven-time national championship winning coach spent roughly 15 minutes with the media.

The wide-ranging list of topics includes what you would expect: name, image and likeness, the recent feud with Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, conference scheduling and managing rosters in an era of NIL and the transfer portal. See what Saban said in his opening statement, as well as his responses to those six questions asked by reporters, below.

Opening statement

“I’d like to welcome everybody to this year’s SEC meetings. I think this is my 21st year in the league, 19th time to Destin. So we at least know our way around here. I’d also like to make mention to Memorial Day. It’s a time for us to honor all those who have worked and sacrificed to maintain our freedom and quality of life, and I’d like to thank them for their service.

“This always sort of marks the time when summer begins with your players. Our players reported for the first day of summer school, start working out. So this kind of signifies the first time you really have your entire team together, and everybody’s going to start working toward the common goal of the season. As we do in coaching, that’s always something that you prepare for year-round, but also look forward to when you get your group together and everybody starts working towards that purpose.

“I know there’s a lot of issues that we’re gonna discuss here this year, and as we always do, we try to have positive input in all those areas for the betterment of college football. And that’s always been my major, major concern. With that, questions?” 

On what evidence he has regarding Texas A&M buying its entire recruiting class…

“I didn’t really say that anybody did anything wrong.”

On quick follow-up question about him saying A&M bought its recruiting class…

“I didn’t say anybody did anything wrong. OK, and I’ve said everything I’m gonna say about this. I should have never mentioned any individual institutions, and I said that before. But some kind of uniform name, image and likeness standard that supports some kind of equitable, national competition, I think is really, really important in college athletics and college football. And we’ve always had that, whether it’s equal scholarships, equal Alston money, whatever it might be. So that’s kind of Point 1.

“Point 2 is we need some kind of transparency in name, image and likeness deals to verify that players are doing what they need to do to have the opportunity to make money in name, image and likeness. And believe me, I’m all for players making as much as they can make, OK. But I also think that we’ve gotta have some uniform, transparent way to do that. Our players did extremely well last year in name, image and likeness because they got agents, they had representation, they had people who wanted them to actually endorse something for them, and they did very, very well. That’s public record, and you can see how well they did. 

“And I think that also, student-athletes need some protection from unfair name, image and likeness representation or deals. You could have a player – and we’ve had this happen to us in the past – that thinks he’s signing one thing and he signs something else and gives up his freedom of choice in the future as to who represents him. You know, we have no oversight right now for players when it comes to this. And I also think that boosters should continue to be precluded from recruiting, including use of name, image and likeness offers prior to enrollment.

“That’s basically what I have to say about some of the things that I think we need to do from a college football perspective. This is not about Alabama, this is not about what’s best for us. I just hope that we can sort of put some guardrails on all this. I read something in the Wall Street Journal that said what we’ve done in college football – and I’m paraphrasing here – is putting a canoe on top of an SUV to go to the lake, didn’t tie it down, took off and just hoped for the best. And I think that’s kind of where we are right now.

“I think it’s a great thing for players to have the opportunity. They’ve always been able to work. I’ve always said I’ve encouraged this whole name, image and likeness for players to be able to earn money. It’s just something that I think we need to make sure that we have a uniform way to have equitable competition. It’s transparent, we protect the student-athlete. And boosters have never been involved in recruiting, and hopefully, we’ll not allow that to happen relative to this circumstance.”

On if Jimbo Fisher was lying when he claimed that A&M isn’t doing anything…

“I have no problem with Jimbo. I have no problem with Jimbo at all.”

On if he supports moving to a nine-game conference schedule…

“Well, I’ve always been for playing more conference games. I’ve always been for improving the college schedule, trying to eliminate some of these games that you play that fans, players, supporters are not really interested in. I think the nine-game format is a start in that direction, but what is the best model? I think that’s the issue. What is the best model? That’s No. 1, and No. 2 is are other conferences doing the same thing? Are they going to play more conference games? Are they going to have the same kind of competitive balance?

“This always goes back to competitive balance, and when you have conferences making all these decisions, sometimes you lose a little bit of that. So if we’re gonna play nine conference games and we’re gonna end up playing probably five, minimum, top-15 teams in the country – and I’m talking about all of us, not just our team. How’s that gonna compare to other conferences? And then what kind of opportunity – you could have a great team and lose two games in our conference and somebody else gets in the playoffs because they went undefeated but they didn’t have the same opportunity to play as many good teams.

“So I think all these things need to be taken into consideration, but those are probably the two most significant to me. And it’s a tough act for the conference to try to get it where it’s equal in terms of whatever the model is.”

On moving away from the NCAA, any NIL solutions on the conference level..

“Well, I think right now, everybody’s looking for solutions. I think every conference is looking for a solution. I would 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 player. I’m certainly not opposed to benefitting the player every way we can, but in a model where the player can continue to stay focused on what they need to do to create value for their future, if that makes sense.

“Like you’re going to college to prepare yourself for the day you can’t play football, to 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. So 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. I mean, as soon as you start playing 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. The players association monitors the agents so players are protected. So a lot of these things just don’t exist 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 need to control those things in a way that creates uniform balance for everybody?”

On any adjustments being made to manage Alabama’s rosters with the transfer portal…

“The only thing I think we can do is continue to try to have the best program with the best support to create the most value and personal development, academic support, academic success with players, players’ ability to develop in our program so that they can create value for their future as football players. There’s a stat out there that our players, since 2010, have made $1.7 billion playing in the NFL. So they created that value in developing. And I’m sure a lot of other players have made a lot of money playing and developing in a lot of other programs, so it’s not singular to ours.

“So to get players to focus on that and not just on where they can go and how much they can make – but the issue of the transfer portal and name, image and likeness even a huger dynamic in terms of players saying, ‘Well, I’m just gonna get in the transfer portal and see if I can get more someplace else.’ I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m just saying that that’s the road that we’re going down because none of the players have any contractual obligation at all to stay at a school.

“So we have to do the best we can to have the best possible program for them to have success in terms of personal development, academic support, career development and development as football players. Hopefully, there’s people who see value in what they can create in the future, not just in maybe what they can make now. Not that I’m opposed at all to players making what they can make right now. But I do think you have to have some kind of way to create a national, competitive balance.”

On any changes to how he’s evaluating recruits in today’s college football…

“I think we present the fact that we want to do these things in terms of helping players develop personally, academically and athletically, and I think there are some people out there that would choose that. There’s some other people that might choose where can they make the best deal for themselves right now – and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just saying everybody’s gonna have to pick how they wanna try to manage this.

“The question is is this a sustainable model? I mean, can you continue to do this? And what are the team dynamics relative how you manage this and how you do it when you don’t have some kind of an equal form for every player on your team. But no, we haven’t recruited any differently, but I just think that players will have an appeal for what they’re looking for and that may change because they have more options now.”

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