Nick Saban Illustrates Hopes for Where College Football Should Be in Five Years

The recently retired Alabama head football coach offered potential methods and solutions that could benefit other sports in collegiate athletics as well.

Dec 2, 2023; Atlanta, GA, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban looks on before the SEC Championship game against the Georgia Bulldogs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports / John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

It's no secret that the college football landscape has changed drastically and rapidly over the past few years, as NIL, the transfer portal and many other modifications have altered the way we watch games every Saturday.

These countless adjustments to college football have created an entirely new timeline for what to expect in the near future. On Monday evening, recently retired Alabama head coach Nick Saban went on SEC Network's Marty & McGee to discuss a variety of hot-button topics in the sport, including what he hopes college football will be like five years from now.

"I think the game will look the same on the field, but I hope that we can create a competitive balance in the game by doing the sharing of revenue or whatever that we have to do with players," Saban first stated.

Saban proceeded to offer potential methods and solutions to reach these hopeful goals, including a common flaw that often separates college football from the NFL, among other leagues and levels.

"We're going to come up with a system that doesn't create advantages and disadvantages, so there's some level of parity in how everybody competes," Saban said. "If we're going to keep the spirit of the game to be what it is, people want to see good games. So if everybody's operating under a similar circumstance, you're going to have more good teams and you're going to have more good games and people are going to continue to buy into that."

The seven-time national champion (six at Alabama) furthered his statements by implementing his ideas and beliefs in collegiate sports other than football.

"If we can do all that and keep the spirit on college athletics, on education, on development, personal development and future success in football, in any sport, as well as people, we can take the lessons that they learn in athletics to help them be more successful in life, while not eliminating opportunities in any of the sports that we have right now," Saban said.

"You know what scares me a lot about this is what happens to some of the non-revenue sports if we have a certain circumstance over here that creates economic issues that we can't support all those sports? Those sports are just as important as football stadiums that have 100,000 people. Other sports have the opportunity to create opportunities to compete and learn the lessons in life that will help them be successful."

At the end of Saban's speech, Marty Smith, one of the show's hosts, claimed that a few years ago, Saban previously told him "I am for player empowerment, but we got to have guard rails." It doesn't seem like his opinion has changed too much since then on this subject.