Nick Saban went on College GameDay in Eugene, Oregon, on Saturday and carried water for Ole Miss Rebels football coach (for now) Lane Kiffin and his agent, Jimmy Sexton, amidst a very public and ugly ongoing bidding war for the 50-year-old coach involving Ole Miss, the LSU Tigers, and the Florida Gators.
Related: Sexton is Saban and Kalen DeBoer's agent as well.
Hence, the reframing of the problem as a "college football problem," which is vague enough to shift the blame off of Sexton, who happens to be the agent most frequently involved with squeezing schools for his and his client's sake.
"None of this is fair to the players. So if we did all that in May and then had some kind of OTA days or something in the summer time instead of spring practice we wouldn't have all these issues and players could actually finish the year," Saban said.
"So this is not a Lane Kiffin conundrum, this is a college football conundrum that we need some leadership to step up and change the rules on how this gets done in terms of coaching searches and opportunities for people to leave."
The Washington Post's Steven Godfrey, a University of Mississippi alum, ripped Saban's diatribe as "disgusting."
"It’s time to seriously talk about the messaging apparatus Jimmy Sexton and CAA have created with Nick Saban, ESPN, and a perch of friendly reporters. This is getting disgusting," Godfrey wrote.
Once you know the game, you understand the propaganda that'll occur on ESPN airwaves. Hint: it's always going to be pro-SEC, it'll always find a way to scrutinize the Big Ten, and 100% of the time, the Big 12 and the Group of 5 will be respected. Unless it's Deion Sanders' Colorado Buffaloes. Then they'll get inappropriate hype.
It is what it is. Saban is already a de facto villain to most, so sticking up for his agent and former championship-winning offensive coordinator isn't exactly a shock to that crowd.
It's just not a message that'll go over well with former Rebs, or really, anyone. Besides Kiffin and Sexton's camps, anyway.