Nick Saban has taken a ton of heat from the college football world over the past 24 hours following accusations he made against Texas A&M and Jackson State. Today, he addressed the people criticizing him.
Speaking to ESPN’s Chris Low, Saban refused to respond to Jimbo Fisher’s scathing comments about him from earlier in the day. He said he believes “people are silent” on NIL and the problems is presents. But as for the critics, he doesn’t care what people think about him.
“A lot of people are silent (on using NIL to pay players to go to school.) But, you know, at this stage of my career, I’m not worried about what people think of me,” Saban told ESPN’s Chris Low.
Saban may not care what people think, but he’ll still have to deal with the consequences of what he said. He received a formal reprimand from the SEC for the comments he made.
But Alabama fans are completely standing by the coach who delivered them a half-dozen national titles. Current and former players for Nick Saban are taking to Twitter to defend him too.
At the end of the day, the only way anyone will face consequences for the litany of accusations thrown around is if hard evidence is brought before the NCAA or law enforcement. That doesn’t feel like a likely outcome given how these schools operate.
But this issue isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s an ethical dilemma that may rage in the public sphere even after it’s codified into law.
We’ll see how Nick Saban feels about it then.