Nick Saban epitomizes the SEC’s motto: It Just Means More.
Saban led off Day 2 of SEC Media Days live from the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, and he worked a masterclass on how to answer a question without answering it at all.
The headman at Alabama was asked about having elite talents on both sides of the ball with guys like Bryce Young, the 2021 Heisman Trophy winner, and Will Anderson, the quiet favorite for the 2022 Heisman Trophy.
“Well, I don’t like to compare players, but to have two players that make such a significant impact on our team as those two guys, I don’t recall ever having a circumstance like that,” said Saban. “But I think probably bigger than that is the impact that they have on the players around them. These guys set a great example. They’re players that other people on our team can emulate in a positive way because of the example that they set. These guys are very serving to their teammates in terms of they really do care about helping other people for their benefit.”
Saban also talked about NIL as well as competing against former assistant coaches that have gone on to become head coaches.
“Well, I don’t dislike name, image, and likeness. I’m all for the players. I want our players to do well. Our players made over $3 million in name, image, and likeness. I’m all for the players being able to do as well as they can and use their name, image and likeness to create value for themselves” said Saban.
“But the thing that I have sort of expressed, not concerns about, but there’s got to be some uniformity and protocol of how the name, image, and likeness is implemented. I think there’s probably a couple of factors that are important in that. How does this impact competitive balance in college athletics? And is there transparency to maintain fairness across the board in terms of college athletics? How do we protect the players? Because there’s more and more people that are trying to get between the player and the money.”
There is no competitive sport anywhere that doesn’t have guidelines on how they maintain some kind of competitive balance. I think that’s important to college football. I think it’s important to fans. That’s why they have rules in the NFL where you have a salary cap, you have difficult schedules if you have a successful season, you draft later if you have a successful season, you draft early if you have an unsuccessful season” Saban said to the media on Tuesday.
Alabama opens its season on September 3 vs Utah State in Tuscaloosa.