Auburn football reporter Justin Lee, editor of The Opelika-Auburn News, believes that Nick Saban's comments about NIL during a March 12 hearing on Capitol Hill -- revolving around how players care more about money than growing as a student-athlete and how it led him to retire -- show that his comments about being inspired to coach to be a mentor to young kids is a lie.
"Once again INSANE that some of these coaches spent so much time on their moral high horse talking about how they do it all for the relationships with young people, only to now reveal it was all entirely conditional — this fragile, this flimsy, this fake," Lee wrote.
Saban made several remarks to congress about the current NIL system being harmful to the sport.
"It's whoever wants to pay, the most money raised, the most money to buy the most players is going to have the best opportunity to win," Saban said (h/t On3's Pete Nakos). "I think the system that we have in the NFL, where players are employees would be better than the system that we have now because at least it creates parity."
Nick Saban claims that the sport he loved no longer exists
Saban had a "back in my day" moment on Capitol Hill, claiming that the sport he loved for 50 years no longer exists because of NIL.
"Well, all the things I believed in for all these years of coaching, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics," Saban said.
While NIL has been a discombobulated system with little rhyme or reason, it's undoubtedly been good for the players; who can now get a slice of the monetary pie that programs have been hoarding for themselves for as long as the sport existed.
Saban is telling on himself by admitting that is a deal-breaker for him to coach any longer.