SEC Coaches React to Public Exchange Between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher

Kirby Smart, Lane Kiffin, Eli Drinkwitz, Billy Napier and Shane Beamer all took a moment to give their thoughts on the Alabama and Texas A&M head coaches' recent public spat.

DESTIN, Fla. — During Tuesday morning's football coaches press conferences at the 2022 SEC Meetings, the topic of Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher's recent public spat was a key topic of conversation.

During his time with the media, Saban addressed his comments concerning the Aggies and NIL once more, explaining that he never stated that they committed any wrongdoing. While Fisher is in attendance at this week's meetings, he did not make any public comments to the media.

Along with Saban, four other SEC coaches met with the media, including Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz, Georgia's Kirby Smart, Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin, South Carolina's Shane Beamer and Florida's Billy Napier.

Smart, Kiffin and Napier all served time as assistant coaches under Saban at Alabama. However, Smart has experience with both Saban and Fisher, as he was a member of Saban's 2004 LSU staff serving as defensive backs coach while Fisher was the team's offensive coordinator.

All four coaches tiptoed around the situation, with none of them directly assessing if Saban or Fisher had committed any wrongdoing in their approach to the situation. However, all four of them did provide decent commentary as outsiders looking into the situation.

Here is what the coaches of the conference had to say about Saban and Fisher's indirect exchange regarding NIL and recruiting:

© Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports

Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri

“I’m not sure as far as the public spat, the only public spats we had is I’ve got four daughters, and a two-year-old and a four-year-old got into it at Disney the other day.”

When pressed further, Drinkwitz elaborated:

“Well we had cotton candy and it was a matter of who got the most. They don’t know what NIL is.

“We were watching the Disney parade. I went to the confection, I got everybody some snacks. I got water, I got two suckers, and I made a mistake. We’ve got two kids. My wife was like, ‘You’re an idiot. You don’t know parenting. You coach football. You don’t bring back one bag of cotton candy. You bring two bags of cotton candy.’

“Here’s what I’ll say about the public conversation: when tensions are high, and uncertainty is high, people’s emotions are strong. I think that’s what happened. We’re all competitive. We’re all competitive. I look forward to the opportunity for all of us to discuss it, but I think what I understand is that we’re talking about two greats in the game who coached this game at a high level. They’re very successful, and they both have opinions on how things should operate and it probably shouldn’t have occurred publicly, and it’s probably unfortunate that it did. But it is a real issue, and we’ve got to find real solutions. And I think that’s why we’re here is to find those real solutions and have conversations and again, to have those behind closed doors and not so public so we can share our honest opinions without fear of those opinions coming back to hurt us or harm us in some sort of way.”

Kirby Smart, Georgia

“I’m not really worried about a feud between two guys that used to sit in the same staff meeting and have similar conversations. At the end of the day, sometimes things get heated. You’d rather it not be in the public arena, but at the end of the day, things like that happen. I mean, you guys should be on the headphones sometime. You would think that was Mickey Mouse. It just happened in front of everybody.

"It's not commonplace place for guys to be reaching out and be friendly. We compete on the field, and we’re constantly competing for prospects day in and day out. It’s not super unusual."

Ole Miss

Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss

Kiffin responded to a question regarding what the atmosphere of the meeting room between the 14 SEC coaches was, especially regarding Saban and Fisher.

“Pretty normal," Kiffin said. "Probably the assumption is it’s different in there than you guys think and that the public thinks. Guys have jobs to do. They’re professionals. It’s probably a lot calmer than you may picture.”

“You’d have to ask those two the exact parts of that. I guess the best way to describe it is our group is more professional in the room than they are when they’re on camera by themselves — where people might say things on text where they wouldn’t in person. Maybe kinda like that.”

© JESSICA GALLAGHER/ Staff / USA TODAY NETWORK

Shane Beamer, South Carolina

“I’ll stay away from that one, sorry. We all put a lot of work into recruiting and a lot of time and effort, without a doubt. Certainly, we all try to do things the right way, myself included. I’ll leave it at that.”

© Doug Engle / USA TODAY NETWORK

Billy Napier, Florida

“I’m not foolish enough to get caught commenting about that situation. I’ll let those two gentlemen handle that. But both are very accomplished, both are competitors, both have conviction about who they are and what they do. It’s one of the reasons they’ve had success. In this profession, right, there’s a lot of ways to skin a cat, in all the different areas. I think the University of Florida right now, we’re trying to get our organization in order and certainly thankful for Coach and what he did for my career.”