Terry Bowden provides reaction to Nick Saban-Jimbo Fisher feud, NIL violations

Terry Bowden has been around college football for a while. He began his coaching career in 1983, beginning with stops at Salem and Samford before heading to Auburn in 1993. Recently, Bowden joined The Paul Finebaum Show and went in-depth on the recent feud between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher, also providing strong commentary on the state of college athletics regarding NIL.

Saban recently came into the spotlight when the Alabama coach called out Fisher and Texas A&M for buying players, also accusing Deion Sanders and Jackson State of doing the same. Fisher then had a fiery response, creating some real fireworks in the coming days.

Bowden has been around both Saban and Fisher, and he thinks that both probably wish that situation never happened.

“It’s a fight because I got to play both teams,” Bowden started. “Of course having coached at Auburn, you’re always going to be tied to Auburn. It’s an argument that should not have been public. And I think anybody that was a part of it wished it had not happened. I can’t put words in Coach Saban’s mouth, but I bet he would say, ‘I wish I hadn’t gone down that road.’ Jimbo, I already know – he gonna blow up. He’s gonna compete every day and that was why he responded as he did. Deion should never have been in that conversation, he’s not in that war with them.

“But again, that’s a battle that Jimbo has to fight. Because his school, they didn’t pay him that much money to come in second. You can be awful good – I know at Auburn, you could have an outstanding year and still finish in third or fourth in your own division. It’s a little different standard you’re held to.”

Bowden on NIL

This past season, Bowden wrapped up his first season as Louisiana-Monroe’s head coach. The Warhawks went 4-8. Bowden is very experienced in college football, but NIL is a completely new territory.

“All this NIL stuff has changed everything and everybody is doing it,” said Bowden. “They said it’s not going to be for recruiting, or it’s not going to be for performance. And that’s the only thing it’s for. There’s not a guy going to any school in America that’s not – he’s being recruiting by somebody that’s paying him because he’s gonna be playing on Saturday and in the paper on Sunday and it’s gonna be somebody that either ups their sales or ups their ego. Then his performance is gonna keep him in the paper and it’s gonna be the school they want.

“So everybody, whether they do it one way or they do it another way – just like in recruiting. Auburn recruited one way, Alabama recruited another way. But we all recruited. But NIL – it’s changed the game. I don’t think it can be sustained, but it’s not going away. But when a quarterback gets a Bentley and makes seven figures, he’s a professional athlete. You can say what you want to, he’s a professional athlete. Unless somewhere something changes, we’ll have a different game down the road as this becomes an annual thing every year with these players. You can’t put it back up, it’s out. But somehow, it’s got to be sustained.”

When recalling the history of the NIL-related issues being seen right now, Bowden said that it goes way back very early on in the history of the sport.

“I think buying players, it started in the Ivy League,” added Bowden. “It started in the Ivy League, that’s why Congress took scholarships away and they wanted to ban football. But somewhere along the line it changed. So NIL has got to move into something a little different. It’s got to have some kind of control or we’re just going to be playing semi-pro football.”