In NIL battle, real issues clouded by personal confrontation: Column

College football coaches are feuding for the soul of the game over NIL issues this week. Two of the five national championship-winning leaders of the game, no less, in Alabama’s Nick Saban and Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher.

Who could have seen this one coming?

On one side of the argument, Saban is foretelling the end of college athletics as we know it. That is to say, when college football players eventually reach a point of compensation from the university itself, the funding for all of the non-revenue sports will dry up. 

“Non-revenue sports, that have for years and years and years been able to create a better life for themselves because they’ve been able to get scholarships, and participate in college athletics, that’s what college athletics is supposed to be,” Saban said at an event in Birmingham, Ala., on Wednesday night. “It’s not supposed to be something where people come and make money.

“You make a decision about where you go to school based on how much money you’re going to make. You should make a decision based on where you have the best chance to develop as a person, as a student, and as a player. That’s what we’ve always tried to major in. Hopefully, there are enough people out there that want to do it.”

On the other side of the argument is Fisher and Texas A&M, whether they want to be or not. 

As part of Saban’s survey of the college football landscape and NIL’s impact on it, the seven-time national champion roped the Aggies in as an example of what’s happening in the sport. 

“You read about it, you know who they are. We were second in recruiting last year. A&M was first. A&M bought every player on their team, made a deal for name, image, and likeness,” Saban said. “We didn’t buy one player. Aight? But I don’t know if we’re going to be able to sustain that in the future, because more and more people are doing it. It’s tough.”

Naturally, months after Fisher rejected the claim that his top-ranked recruiting class had been influenced by money, he again took exception to the remarks. So much so, that he called an impromptu press conference Thursday to unload on Saban’s character and the Alabama football program.

“First, I want to say, it’s a shame that we have to do this,” said Fisher. “It’s really despicable. It’s despicable that somebody can say things about somebody, an organization, and more importantly, 17-year-old kids. You’re taking shots at 17-year-old kids and their families. That they broke state laws, that they’re all money, that we bought every player on this group.

“We never bought anybody. No rules were broken. Nothing was done wrong. It was all – the way in which we do things, the ethics of how we do things. And these families, it’s despicable that a reputable head coach can come out and say this when he doesn’t get his way or things don’t go his way. The narcissist in him doesn’t allow those things to happen and it’s ridiculous when he’s not on top.”

Finding a resolution

What’s the matter, Jimbo? What’s the matter, Nick? If I may, allow your little buddy Nate to mend your broken hearts. 

A little bit of this, it seems to me, is a matter of misunderstanding. In a full clip of Saban’s comments at the event, posted to AL.com, the head coach was discussing a breadth of issues related to NIL. 

In concept, he said, NIL was an opportunity for players to work and earn for themselves outside of the realm of football. That’s through autographs, commercials, or anything else they want to do to hustle and earn money for the effort. But, he continued, an issue was created for the game along with the advent of these new NIL rules. 

“The issue and the problem with name, image, and likeness is coaches trying to create an advantage for themselves,” Saban said. “(They) went out and said, ‘Okay, how can we use this to our advantage?’”

Explaining the creation of collectives as a legal avenue to collect money from boosters, then funnel it to players, Saban’s point isn’t necessarily wrong. Collectives do steer far from the intent of the creation of name, image, and likeness rules in the NCAA. They also functionally operate in a separate world from what individual states attempted to rectify with laws over the prohibition of student-athletes being able to make money.

But, respectfully, of course coaches would try to create an advantage for themselves. Of course programs would attempt to work within the rules to turn it into an advantage.

That’s what college football coaches do. That’s what everyone does, everywhere, in seemingly every phase of life, let alone sport. As best as possible, within the rules (and many times not), people make an effort to give themselves an advantage. 

All of which is why Fisher’s response to this is a little more complex than just having righteous indignation. 

If his objection is to Saban’s saying the class was “bought,” fine. He has a right to be ticked about it. Creating the perception that Texas A&M only had its recruiting success, if the insinuation is that they were paid before enrolling, is problematic. 

But that’s not really in the spirit of what Saban was saying. The entire lead-in to the A&M comments was about the model not being sustainable. Recruits creating bidding wars for what they’ll be paid when they arrive, is a grey area of the rules but is technically permissible and is happening. 

With Alabama’s collective directed to pay players equally from the pot, Saban said the same type of projections that are being made elsewhere are leading to an uncompetitive situation in recruiting. 

“We have players in our state that grew up wanting to come to Alabama, that they won’t commit to us unless we say we’re going to give them what somebody else is going to give,” Saban said. “I know that we’re going to lose recruits because somebody else is going to be willing to pay them more.”

What’s next for NIL?

Saban’s not off-base about this. And Fisher, given the benefit of doubt that he’s being truthful about not breaking any rules, has nothing to apologize over with A&M’s recruiting efforts.

The question is simply whether anything can be done about it in college football now that the precedent has been set. 

The reality is that recruits and their families aren’t and shouldn’t be complaining about the newfound freedom to rightfully capitalize on their valuable talents and efforts. 

But the enticement element of the equation, which can and should be defined for the sake of the game’s integrity, needs clarification and, more important, enforcement from the NCAA. And the NCAA, as Saban would go on to explain, is going to need the assistance of federal legislation if it has any hope of executing that enforcement.

“People blame the NCAA, but in defense of the NCAA, we are where we are because of the litigation that the NCAA gets in the transfer portal,” Saban said. “Every time somebody wanted to transfer that applied for a waiver, if the NCAA didn’t give them a waiver so they could be immediately eligible, they filed suit. So the NCAA would back off and give them a waiver. So they just said, we’re just gonna make a rule where everybody can transfer. That’s how that happened. 

“If the NCAA doesn’t get some protection from litigation, whether we gotta get an antitrust or whatever it is from a federal government standpoint, this is not going to change because they cannot enforce their rules.”

At a crossroads moment for the sport, the conflict between Saban and Fisher isn’t the fight it’s being made out to be. At least, it shouldn’t be, anyway.

For whatever hard feelings might exist, pronounced clearly by Fisher on Thursday morning, that he and his Texas A&M program are the exemplifications of how to best manipulate a situation into an advantage isn’t slander. It’s technically within the rules, and more importantly, it’s the reality of what’s taking place now. And that includes within the community of a Penn State football program actively working to be able to compete in the same NIL space.

How coaches angle and position themselves to push the limits of rules is not going to change. It’s what they do, regardless of the spirit of what those rules are intended to be, at every level of the sport. 

Saban might consider leaving A&M specifically out of the conversation next time, but even his objections to NIL exploitation didn’t change his acknowledged reality. Until the NCAA can set and enforce rules, backed by laws that uphold them, nothing is going to change. 

And even then, NIL isn’t going anywhere, and it’s an opportunity for all stakeholders. But whether exemplified by Fisher and the Aggies, Miami, or Tennessee, the rules in place will be pushed to their limits, whatever they are.

“Name, image, and likeness is something that’s here,” Saban said. “And I think the more supporters that we have for the University of Alabama in all sports, that are willing to sponsor players… (and) use them in your business to help your business, that’s going to help our programs.”