Nick Saban opens up on the current state of college football

As spring football goes on across the country and another cycle of the calendar turns in the college football world, coaches have a better idea than ever of the current NIL and recruiting landscape.

But despite having a better handle on how things are actually functioning from a practical standpoint, some coaches still aren’t a big fan.

Count Alabama‘s Nick Saban among those. He’s seen some rapid changes to the NIL and recruiting landscape over the last couple recruiting cycles and he thinks there are elements of NIL in college football that have gotten out of hand.

“I think it’s changed dramatically in the last three years,” Saban said on the Know Mercy with Stephen A. Smith podcast. “I’m one that’s always for the players, so I’m happy that the players sort of have the opportunity to use their name, image and likeness to make money for themselves. I think that’s great.”

If only name, image and likeness were limited to its intended use.

Like anything, though, once a set of guardrails is established you can expect some to push the limits. That has certainly happened, and without a ton of enforcement from the NCAA it has created an environment where the rules can be played with fast and loose.

However, to understand Saban’s full stance on NIL and recruiting, you have to fully understand where he’s starting from. To do that is to understand what his version of college football can do for players beyond the sport.

“I always thought you went to college to try to create value for your future in terms of doing well academically, being a good person, trying to develop a career as a player,” Saban explained. “So you’re really trying to develop value for your future.”

NIL has become a race of how much

Perhaps the single defining characteristic of NIL for Saban at this point has been the ceaseless escalation of various deals at some college football programs.

Individual players have been able to command deals well into seven figures.

That can create additional hurdles or barriers to actually achieving the kind of success that is sustainable for young college-aged men, Saban said.

“I don’t like the trend toward how much money can I make while I’m in college, and then how much of a distraction is that to your ability to stay focused on the things you need to do to create value for your future,” he wondered aloud. “Then you throw transfer into that and then you have people out there trying to get between the money and the player to get them to make a better deal someplace else, college football should not be pay for play.”

At the end of the day, without better structures policing every element of NIL and recruiting, it’s going to be difficult to arrive at that same consensus Saban would like to see where NIL is ancillary to, not anathema to, college athletics.

“As happy as I am that the players have an opportunity to make some money by using their name, image and likeness, I don’t think it should be used to influence guys on where they go to school,” Saban said. “So it shouldn’t be used in recruiting, and it shouldn’t become a pay-for-play device that we use professionally as coaches to get guys to come to our school or play for our team.”