Broadcasting legend Verne Lundquist shared his ideas on why legendary Alabama football coach Nick Saban determined to name it quits after the 2023-24 collegiate season.
It shocked everybody when Saban retired from teaching after main his crew to the College Football Playoff following an SEC Championship win over Georgia.
Lundquist, who referred to as faculty soccer for years prior to stepping away from CBS’ protection in 2016, believes that identify, picture and likeness – higher often known as NIL – led to Saban’s retirement.
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On Wednesday, March 2, 2016, outdoors the West Wing of the White House, Alabama Crimson Tide soccer crew Coach Nick Saban speaks to reporters. (Cheriss May/NurPhoto/NurPhoto by way of Getty Images)
“The two biggest changes, both of which helped drive Nick Saban into retirement, are transfer portal and NIL,” Lundquist stated throughout an look on Barstool’s “Pardon My Take.” “These kids now [ask], ‘How much are you gonna pay me?’ Or ‘If you don’t pay me or if you don’t guarantee I’m starting and pay me, I’m transferring, I’m going to Central Michigan.’ And I think Nick has now said, ‘Yeah, that drove me nuts.’”
While Saban hasn’t definitively come out and stated that NIL and the transfer portal drove him out of the sport, he has brazenly criticized the best way faculty athletics are operating now.
Saban stated again in February whereas on an ESPN panel throughout “College GameDay” that “what we have now is not college football.”
“Not college football as we know it,” he continued. “You hear somebody use the word ‘student-athlete.’ That doesn’t exist.
Saban said he wants to try to impact college football however he can, and that started with a discussion on Capitol Hill regarding the future of college athletics in terms of the transfer portal and NIL. He was a part of a roundtable discussion, led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, where he gave his experience to explain why there need to be regulations with the transfer portal and NIL.
Verne Lundquist of CBS Sports during the 2017 NCAA Photos via Getty Images Men’s Basketball Tournament held at Madison Square Garden on March 24, 2017, in New York City. (Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
“All the issues I’ve believed in for all these years – 50 years of teaching – now not exists in faculty athletics,” he explained when Cruz asked if the “present chaos” led to his retirement. “It’s all the time was about creating layers, all the time been about serving to folks be extra profitable in life.”
Saban even brought up an anecdote about how his wife, Terry, asked him “Why are we doing this?” following a Sunday breakfast she usually puts together for recruits and their parents when visiting Alabama.
“’All they care about is how a lot you’re going to pay them. They don’t care about the way you’re going to develop them, which is what we’ve all the time achieved. So why are you doing this?’” Saban recalled his wife saying before he decided to retire. Saban added that it was a “pink alert” hearing his wife say that.
And that’s exactly what Lundquist is alluding to here, that athletes are now focused on how much money they can make during their college years. If that means transferring to cash in, then the transfer portal can help them do that.
Verne Lundquist visits the SiriusXM Studios on October 8, 2018, in New York City. (Taylor Hill/Getty Images)
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To their credit, it’s what the NCAA currently allows, so they’re simply using the system at hand to their own benefit. But Saban and many others are hoping the NCAA and college athletics can reel it in a bit, because recruiting isn’t about selling an athlete on their program and school to better them on and off the field.
It’s about how many zeroes go on a check.
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