Georgia fans love to hate Nick Saban. Most fans do have respect for him because how could you not respect the greatest college football coach of all time? But he beat Georgia too many times for them to like him.
Saban's been retired for two years now, and in those two years Georgia won the SEC twice in his absence. That is definitely making people forget about their displeasure of him, and his analysis on ESPN's College GameDay every week certainly helps as well.
But the reason Georgia fans should start liking Saban more is because he is becoming a true advocate for college athletics. On Wednesday he met with Congress to discuss the Protect College Sports Act and he spoke about a wide range of issues that Congress is attempting to fix in college athletics today.
The following three topics he spoke on were the highlights though and are things everyone, including bitter Georgia fans, should agree with.
Nick Saban believes NIL spending is out of control
NIL is the single biggest problem in the college football today. Rosters are approaching $40 million, and that is not what NIL was supposed to be. NIL was supposed to be a way for players to make a little extra money off their Name, Image and Likeness, you know, the words NIL stands for.
Instead teams are buying players, and that is a big problem in Saban's eyes.
"First of all, I think student athletes should profit from name, image, and likeness, as long as those things are authentic endorsements," Saban said via si.com. "They create branding for themselves, they sign with the company, they do promotions. I think these things are all healthy for their education, as well as their quality of life. I think name, image, and likeness has become pay-for-play.
Georgia is one of the lucky schools who has the NIL money to compete at the highest level. But if it were up to Smart he would want NIL to be handled the same way Saban wants which is how it was originally intended.
That is what is best for the sport, not these expensive rosters that look more like professional teams.
NCAA needs to control Transfer Portal tampering
Right up there with NIL is the Transfer Portal. There are a handful of problems with the portal which includes players being able to transfer every year if they choose, but an even bigger problem is tampering.
Coaches are not allowed to contact players if they are not in the Transfer Portal. That rule however is not being followed and the NCAA has shown very little interest in enforcing this rule.
But if college football is going to improve this is something that Saban believes needs to be fixed.
"So now we have this unbelievable number of players that get in a portal every year, and we have nothing to control agents. We have nothing to control tampering," said Saban. "Clemson had a player that was on campus for a whole week, and they come and got him off the campus and took them someplace else. These kinds of things going on in college football are absolutely not what any of us signed up for relative to the educational institutions that we've all tried to represent."
Smart and Georgia have even been accused of tampering. No final verdict has ever come out about if they did or not, but tampering is something that shouldn't be allowed and it's hard to believe anyone out there is okay with it.
Nick Saban and Kirby Smart find common ground on the fears of what could happen to Olympic sports
The final point Saban made is one that Smart has already talked about in great length. This point goes hand in hand with NIL and how rosters are becoming too expensive and the side effects of that.
That money has to come from somewhere, and unfortunately it's the Olympic sports at every school that are really suffering.
"Let me give you the history," Saban said. "My first year we had collective at Alabama, 2.7 million. Next year, 7 million. Next year, 10 million. I retired. Next year, 17 million. Next year, 24 million. Now you have schools that have close to $40 million rosters. So, if we continue to do that, we're going to lose Olympic sports, we're going to lose non-revenue sports, we're going to lose scholarships, and basically, what's going to happen is, you're going to have football and basketball succeed, and we'll have club sports for everything else with no scholarships. That's, that's horrible."
Football and men's basketball are the only sports that make any money at most schools. That doesn't mean every other sport isn't important, but they all rely on football and men's basketball to fund their teams.
If football and men's basketball continue to spend at the rate they are then schools will be left with no choice but to eliminate certain sports teams. That is not a solution anyone should be okay with because these players deserve a chance to play the sport they love at the highest level that is available to them.
Something has to change. Congress is attempting to fix all of these problems, but if anyone pays attention to politics even just a little they know likely nothing will happen.
Realistically it is up to the coaches and administrators to put their selfish desires to the side and do what is best for college athletics overall. That is an extremely tall task as well, but that may be the only hope people have of saving college sports as we know it.
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