‘Decisions are made for…’: Nick Saban discusses about his future at Alabama

admin | December 22, 2023 | Other Clubs | No Comments

College football is in a period of transformation.

The Pac-12 is all but dead, killed by the never-ending drive for more television money, while other realignment across the sport, sparked by the SEC’s acquisition of Texas and Oklahoma, is abandoning smaller brands and terminating historic rivalry games.

Regardless of the influence on historic games, the sport appears to be heading toward an age of superconferences.Alabama will almost certainly remain at the top of college football regardless of what happens, but head coach Nick Saban isn’t satisfied with the present trend.

“What we see as college football right now is completely disconnected from the traditions of what we’ve seen in the past,” Saban remarked on The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday. “And we’ve had some great traditions here, as all schools do in all sports, and some of those things will go by the wayside because decisions for megaconferences are made.” These decisions are being made, most likely for financial reasons in terms of, on the one hand, creating a better program so that you can invest more in players, but on the other hand, you may be eliminating some prospects for other people.”

Before his team’s performance in the Los Angeles Bowl, UCLA head coach Chip Kelly advocated a super league, which would separate football from other sports and establish a 64-team conference with divisions and pay the players. The NCAA’s president, Charlie Baker, recently suggested a new division that would allow member institutions to pay players via trust funds.

That would be fine for some colleges, most likely Alabama. However, rivalries and other traditions will be lost along the road, as Saban admitted on the show.

“I think there’s a great argument for traditions of college football,” Saban said in an interview. “College football has been fantastic for many people.” It’s been fantastic for fans. It’s been a fantastic chance for many young men, not just in football but across the board. I believe I read that 82% of Olympic medalists received their training in college. So some of that will be altered.”

Saban predicted that the wave of change would continue until an unforeseen event occurred.

“I think it’s going to continue in the same direction that it’s going until something happens,” he added. “I call it a ‘thunderbolt,’ where maybe people drop sports because the finance part can’t make sense in terms of what you can reinvest in non-revenue sports, or some players out there don’t get what they were promised and there’s lots of lawsuits and stuff.” I mean, there’s going to be some type of thunderbolt, because this isn’t a system that has any guardrails right now, and most competitive venues have some guardrails.”