I still think that's an all-time great football story.

The Pony Excess.

Saban is used to getting whatever players he wants and now there's a new element and he has lost some grip on that and he is not handling it well at all.


NIL I think needs some tweaking but lmao about "ruining college football" you mean ruining Alabama. That's totally fine with me.

Saban stepped into a big ol' pile of shit, there.

That's a damn bad look for him.

I like Saban a lot and think he's a hell of a coach and a hell of a teacher. I respect the guy a great deal. But that's just not the way to go about it. I'd be stunned if Fisher has done anything that Saban hasn't done in the past. To play holier than thou as an SEC coach is pretty much bullshit.

I don't mind it, but they can't have the NIL and open transfer rules. Especially not when there's no way to prove/enforce the 'no pay for play' rules.

If they aren't going to scale back the NIL stuff (and honestly I don't know how they can), then they need to put the transfer 'penalty' back in place. Otherwise college sports will essentially be year over year FA with boosters throwing checks out there to leverage players.

And it absolutely will destroy the sport, especially beyond the top 15-20 teams or so. You may have 40 schools tops that have any business even fielding a football team if this continues unchecked. Basketball won't be much better.

Soren Petro called it - the new rules of college football are going to push the old standard coaches out and they'll get replaced with young ones that embrace the new college football and we won't be able to tell the difference when they line up and play

Then penalize coaches to sit out a year for taking jobs at different schools.

Or restrict coaches salaries.

Coaches can't bitch about the current state of affairs while making millions of dollars and leaving their players behind to go to a new job without looking like hypocrites.

Hmm... guess I am in the minority here.. I think the new recruiting with money is not good for college football. It has gone from one extreme to another. Not sure how to reign it in.

Saban's suggestion to make the NCAA a federally approved monopoly with agreed upon operation rules like the NFL is actually not a bad idea either.

Saban was just telling all the Bama boosters they need to open their wallets more.

I'm in minority where I think the NIL and transfers are good for the sport. All the paying player shit has been going on. Lets get it out in the open and not where the corrupt Uncle Curly's and Pastors and AAU coaches are getting the bag. As a fan of a school that will be used as a AAA program for the Big 12 and SEC, it sucks to lose players but you got to have the attitude to go recruit and not be a bitch about it.

Look - complain all you want about equity.

But understand that college sports will suck if this keeps up.

Everyone wants to make this some moral dilemma and that’s fine. I’m simply saying that if you care to actually have an entertaining product in 5 years or any sort of vested interest in your college teams, it cannot continue down this road.

Pat yourselves on the back all you want but this is a death knell for college athletics and they’ll be little more than minor league, quasi-professional lesser versions of the big league products (like the G-league and USFL) down the road.

You have kids literally threatening to transfer unless a booster can match an NIL deal someone else offered and you think this is a GOOD thing for college athletics as an entertainment product, eh?

*looks at what my team has done in the portal* this has been ****ing great! I hope it keeps up.

I don't agree with players transferring for the sole purpose of a booster being able to match a NIL deal, but the NCAA and its members created this slippery slope by not allowing players to really get any compensation aside from their scholarship, stipend, etc.

I don't think it's great that Northeast Southwest Average State University is more likely to lose their best players in the portal because of this, but the situation is what it is.

The cat's out of the bag and there's not really anyway of going back. That being said, I do think there should be more regulation on NIL, but I don't know how you regulate it.

Also, USFL or any other smaller league won't even really ever be a threat as well for a few reasons:

1. Aggregating the entirety of the dollars going into college football through universities will far out number the total investment by the USFL. Dudes are getting paid like like 40K right now to play in the USFL.

2. The average player is not likely to be physically ready for a full blown professional league at ages 18-19 and maybe even older. They'd get their ass kicked if they don't have proper strength and conditioning and aren't a genetic freak.

G-League is more of a threat to college for top talent, but with NIL I don't see it as much of a threat.

Wish they'd bring back Celebrity Death Match. That would be ****ing funny.

Has Bobby Petrino chimed yet?