Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher are feuding. You might have heard … and read and watched. The invective is real, and it is spectacular. Power Five might be redefined as number of fingers the Texas A&M coach has curled up into fist waiting for Saban next week at the SEC spring meetings.
Yes, it’s absurd, ridiculous and must-see across all platforms. But in the moment, it has exposed what decades of NCAA investigations, enforcements and penalties could not: a bit of transparency.
Name, image and likeness has allowed the curtain to be pulled back on how the sausage in made. In this case, the sausage is recruiting, which is greasy enough without attaching a breakfast analogy to it.
You can talk smack about a man’s record, playcalling or coaching staff quality, but you better not go there with recruiting. Not publicly. And that’s what Saban did.
Recruiting is the heartbeat of the sport. Everything about college football eventually comes down to recruiting.
Through the accusations from the Alabama coach — and really, that’s all they are right now — we’ve discovered more about the recruiting process than at any time since the SMU death penalty.
Jimbo “bought” his recruiting class? Tell us more. What has been a rumor in the industry Saban exposed as fact. Well, his fact. If true, how is the climate any different than it was previously? Recruits have been bought since the first hundred-dollar handshake.
NIL has blurred the meanings of terms like “pay for play,” “inducement” and even “booster.”
The NCAA isn’t about to tell us. So, we’ve got two superstar coaches essentially quibbling not about the degree of wrongdoing but whether lining up a recruiting class with all the NIL advantages available is dirty.
Nick says yes. Jimbo fired back, disparaging his former boss in the strongest possible language. Their relationship is over.
Does that stop the sniping? Because as a…
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