Matt Rhule endorses Nick Saban as commissioner for college football

Amid all the complaints about the current state of college football, be it the College Football Playoff or NIL and the NCAA Transfer Portal, the only solution that has any consensus is the overwhelming desire for a “commissioner” to create and enforce rules and regulations across the sport.

And, whenever the topic of a college football commissioner comes up, one name always seems to be connected: Nick Saban. Of course, the 74-year-old former Alabama head coach-turned-ESPN College GameDay analyst has repeatedly shot down any such suggestion when it inevitably comes up.

“I don’t want to be in that briar patch of being a commissioner,” Saban told the Associated Press in late August. “But I do want to do everything I can to make it right.”

But now the call is coming from inside the house. This week, Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule openly championed for Saban to accept the yet-to-be-created position during a discussion about the untenable current college football calendar on his House Rhules podcast.

“I can tell you this, I know most coaches, I know me, if that was one the table, I’d certainly vote yes,” Rhule said during Thursday’s episode of his podcast, House Rhules. “Because he’s been in the trenches, he has experience, he has the vision. And you also have to have someone who has the guts and the toughness to make hard decisions, because you’re not going to make everyone happy. That’s why the NFL has Roger Goodell, he’s going to do things, even if people don’t like them, he’s going to do what’s right for the game. And they protect the league.

“For us, our conferences are our leagues, so everyone is protecting their own conference, which is why things end up being maybe a little disjointed as a result,” Rhule concluded. “So, shoot, come on Coach Saban, do it, man. We need you.”

Saban has long been a proponent of more regulation and structure in the sport, especially after this summer’s passage of the House v. NCAA settlement that ended the NCAA’s outdated “amateur” model. The settlement ushered in revenue-sharing across college athletics, allowing programs to pay as much as $20.5 million to their student-athletes, with football teams expected to receive roughly 75% of that total annually. Of course, that has only created more issues, so much so that Congress is now getting involved.

“For years and years and years as coaches, and when we were players, we learned this, we’re trying to create value for our future,” Saban told the AP. “That’s why we’re going to college. It’s not just to see how much money we can make while we’re in college. It’s, how does that impact your future as far as our ability to create value for ourselves?”

That said, if Saban really wants to be part of the solution to what ails college football, Rhule knows the perfect way for him to make the biggest impact.