Marcus Spears fires back at Nick Saban for calling out Deion Sanders, HBCUs

ESPN analyst Marcus Spears voiced his frustrations with Alabama head coach Nick Saban for his comments last week regarding Jackson State and head coach Deion Sanders buying Travis Hunter‘s services for a million dollars.

“Coach Deion Sanders at Jackson State got Travis Hunter to come play – the No. 1 player in the country – who plays defensive back and wide receiver and he’s going to go play [for] the greatest defensive back to ever play in the NFL,” Spears said. “Why don’t we mentioned that as being a part of the reason that he went to Jackson State, a HBCU? If he got a million dollars, so what?

“If it was within the rules and the structure of where the NIL is right now, so what? You have the same ability to do that at the University of Alabama. This was bad.”

Sanders spoke on a recent edition of the ‘I Am Athlete‘ radio show, noting that he realizes that Saban was at an event with many prominent in-state university and football boosters. Saban used Sanders and Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher, who Saban said bought his entire team, as pawns to help Saban win over the boosters so that an FCS teams and a SEC West rival won’t out-do the Crimson Tide in the recruiting scene again.

Spears echoed Sanders’ sentiment and that it wasn’t meant to harm any relationships or cause the ruckus it has over the past week, though he can’t get passed Saban calling out one of his mentor in Sanders.

“Deion Sanders, coach Prime, I consider a mentor,” Spears said. “Somebody that I see a lot of wisdom from when I have the opportunity to be around him. For [Saban] to call out [Sanders and Fisher], one who he’s done Aflac commercials with, and one who he’s coached with.”

It isn’t like someone of Saban’s prominence to publicly burn bridges, and it’s not likely Saban meant to cause the college football world explode off the heels of his comments.

“This was bad by coach Saban, and I think it was more of a ploy and a plea to his boosters to up whatever they could do within the confines in the structure of what they want to do, but this was totally tasteless. It was poor to say they bought players.”