Nick Saban, Jimbo Fisher spat is small symptom of broken college football system

Alabama’s Nick Saban and Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher (along with a few other ancillary characters) engaged in a war of words over the past few days, exposing yet another symptom of a college football system that seems to be crumbling before our very eyes.

Saban essentially accused Fisher — as well as Deion Sanders and the Miami basketball program — of “buying” players under the new world order of college sports known as NIL (name, image, and likeness) rules, allowing players to make money from their own fame — or potential fame.

Fisher, in typical fashion, responded with snark and pompousity, essentially closing the door to any further communication with his former mentor.

It was a petulant display of finger-pointing, name-calling, and blame-throwing which drew the ire and a “go to your room and think about what you’ve done” response from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.

Nick Saban offered a half-hearted apology for his gaffe on Sirius XM,  but part of his statement did get to the crux of the problem.

"“I think my role, our role is to have a program that creates value for guys’ future. So they focus on getting an education, becoming better people, being a good person, learning habits that are gonna help them be successful and see if they can develop a career as a football player. And I think the focus now is getting a little bit more on how much money I can make where I’m playing and where can I make it? And I’m not sure that’s really good systematically for any of us.”"

Let’s be clear about something upfront. This Saban-Fisher-Sanders et al argument, spat, tantrum, or whatever you want to call it is not about cheating, it’s not about looking after the integrity of the game, and it’s certainly not about protecting the players.

It’s a reaction, and a mere symptom, to a growing problem in college sports. The system is breaking down and no one seems to be able to wrap their arms around it to keep it intact, and that scares the hell out of guys like Nick Saban.

NIL rules (if there really are any), the transfer portal, skyrocketing coaches’ salaries, and lagging attendance are all chipping away at the core of competitive college sports’ two most profitable entities — football and basketball — with no real solution in view.

Nick Saban may have good reason to worry

In 2015, I spoke with the former president of The Drake Group, B. David Ridpath, about the future of college sports, and it would seem he truly saw the writing on the wall even then.

"“We can either continue to run it as part of the educational enterprise and then manage it as an extracurricular activity — and we’d argue that people would still come and see the games — or, we just call it what it is and let it be a paraprofessional, outsourced operation of the university, with no eligibility connection. Meaning, if [players] decide to go to school, they’re doing it on their own time, they don’t have a minimum number of hours to take and we don’t have to spend millions of dollars every year to try and keep some of these kids in school.”"

The NIL-transfer portal era may have ushered in that very notion — that the time of being a “student-athlete” may be ending, and players can choose whether to be one or the other (or both) as they see fit. The transfer portal is free agency. NIL is endorsement deals.

This could turn college athletics (at least the revenue-generating sports) into semi-professional leagues that happen to wear the colors and logos of a particular university. Recruiting would shift to licensing, and the schools without an enormous booster war chest would be left out in the cold to wither and die.

We aren’t there yet, but the point of no return doesn’t seem that far off given the ferocious speed with which the dynamics have changed. Just like when an offensive-minded coach is usually replaced with someone hyper-focused on defense, the relaxation of decades of draconian NCAA rules has caused a seismic shift towards a near free-for-all mentality.

The basic human rights of players were so boldly ignored for so long when it came to transferring and being allowed to make money, while coaches were free to come and go and to make money at will, that this over-correction was almost inevitable.

The NCAA seems to be stepping back into the shrubbery like an overused Homer Simpson GIF and leaving it up to conferences — and even schools on some levels — to manage the problems they have all collectively created.

While players are taking advantage of it and grabbing all the cash they can — sometimes even before choosing a school — coaches who have been able to write their own paychecks and recruit at will (not mentioning any names) are feeling threatened as the status quo quickly becomes chaotic.

Bottom line, it’s a mess, and those in power don’t seem to be able to see the forest for the trees, and the forest is this…

Fans. Don’t. Care.

College football fans don’t care if players are going to class or not. They don’t care if players are making money. They don’t care if players are securing NIL deals through a “collective” that stays arms-length from the university. They don’t care if the sport is amateur or semi-professional. They certainly don’t care if Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher aren’t speaking to one another.

All college football fans are about is that a group of kids donning their school colors and logos are winning games. The path to winning is inconsequential. Just win so we can slap another banner up in the rafters or in the stadium.

Admit it, as a college football fan you would probably be no less interested in watching the sport if you knew the players on the field weren’t actually students. Minor league football? Maybe, but you’d still play the fight song and tailgate until the tires fell off.

“If you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying” would simply shift to “We need better boosters”.

While Nick Saban may have been wrong to call out specific coaches or programs, he was unmistakably right about one thing. The system in major college sports as it exists today is not sustainable. Which direction it goes from here is anybody’s guess.