Saban Wants Alabama Balance, Not Competitive Balance

Schools like Arkansas, South Carolina, SMU could gain too much under new system which isn't good for them according to Crimson Tide head coach

Alabama head coach Nick Saban seems to be highly frustrated at the prospect of not having an extreme competitive advantage in Tuscaloosa.

So what is a coach who has been the benefactor of a college football landscape designed to keep him draped in national championship gold at the expense of schools like Arkansas to do when a "lower class" of college football program gets a chance to finally compete on a more even playing field?

Claim this is unfair for the other schools and cling desperately to "tradition."

Make no mistake. The only person who sees what's happening in college football as unfair is Saban. 

And maybe Ohio State, but at least Ryan Day has sense enough to not whine about it. 

Crimson Tide Photos

Saban would like you to believe he's just looking out for the Rice, Vanderbilt and Syracuses of the world. He just wants those programs that are less 5-star enhanced to continue to have a reason to get out of bed each morning should they accidentally stumble into a little success and achieve a .500 record every now and then.

“My biggest concern is competitive balance,” Saban told the "Always College Football" podcast. “The NFL — which I was involved in for eight years — every rule they have is to create competitive balance and if they could have every team go 8–8 so at the end of a season every team was playing their last game to get in the playoffs they would be ecstatic. Because how much fan interest does that create?"

Those kinds of records got teams into the Windsong Ranch Subdivision Bowl under the glory days of two years ago to which Saban so wistfully harkens back. Unless you were Alabama, the only path to the playoffs was a conference championship and no more than one loss in one of three conferences, not a .500 record at Louisiana-Monroe.

Louisiana Monroe Warhawks wide receiver Jahmeel Rice (84) rushes against LSU Tigers safety Cameron Lewis (31) and LSU Tigers cornerback Cordale Flott (25) during the second half at Tiger Stadium / Stephen Lew – USA TODAY Sports

But Saban has programmed himself like Dude from "Free Guy," so everyone step back and get ready to be hit once again with the catchphrase.

"...We’ll lose competitive balance," Saban said. "Which everything we’ve always done in college football is to maintain competitive balance. Same scholarship, everyone had to play by the same rules whether it was recruiting or whatever. Right now that’s not how it is.”

Apparently the King of Tuscaloosa thinks that prior to this past season every school was given an allotment of two 5-stars, four 4-stars, and the rest of the team was only allowed to be filled out with 3-stars while all NCAA schools split all revenue evenly. 

That would be competitive balance. 

Pretty sure that's not something Saban would want or that would keep the Bama boosters happy if he pitched it to the NCAA. But he kept on with the guise that he's only in it for the little guy. 

Please pay no attention to the paper cuts he keeps getting from all the money raining down around him from other programs when he's out on the recruiting trail that keep shaving the high-end recruits he used to stockpile off his bottom line.

Jerome Miron/USA TODAY Images

“We don’t have any guardrails on what we’re doing right now,” Saban said. “We have no restrictions on who can do what. Some people are gonna be capable of doing certain things other people aren’t going to be capable.”

Let's pull that fine print from between the lines and blow it up on the projector for the guys in the back.

What he's saying is that now "some" programs will be capable of doing certain things other programs can't, which isn't acceptable. It disrupts the status quo of competitive balance from before when only Alabama was capable of doing certain things other programs couldn't. 

Dallas Turner-Alabama Crimson Tide :: Butch Dill/USA TODAY Images

Too many programs are getting onto Alabama's side of the scale and there's only room for Nick Saban to spread out over there in his mind. 

Here's where the problem actually lies for Saban. Now that all the money is above board, every university worth its salt as either an educational institution or athletic program can now lure away athletes who would have otherwise gone to Alabama to sit on the bench for three years before starring their senior year.

Now a wealthy donor at Virginia can pitch in enough money to siphon away a player who would be viewed as a superstar in Charlottesville. Meanwhile, the kid gets three extra years of playing time and a few thousand more dollars in his pocket than he would have in Tuscaloosa. 

What really strikes fear in Saban's heart is what will happen to his program if the sleeping giant in the University Park suburb of Dallas wakes up. If Saban is tossing his cookies at the thought of the damage boosters at Texas A&M and Texas have done, wait until those boosters' bosses who support SMU start throwing money around. 

President George W. Bush watches from the sidelines as the Memphis Tigers take on the SMU Mustangs at the Moody Coliseum on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020 / Joe Rondone - USA TODAY Sports

The cash laying around University Park and Highland Park could pay a single player more than what Saban's boosters are paying his whole team.  

College football might not have taken the Mustangs too seriously before everything shook out over the past year, but no program in America stands to benefit more from the new rules. 

Plans are already underway to expand Ford Stadium to a larger capacity, and the pitch to conferences to bring a school sitting in the nation's fifth largest TV market in the heart of the most football hungry society in America isn't going to go unnoticed.

SMU running back Ulysses Bentley IV (7) tries to go over an ACU defender during Saturday's game at Gerald J. Ford Stadium in Dallas on Sept. 4, 2021. The Mustangs won 56-9 / Jordan Hofeditz – USA TODAY Sports

SMU's boosters will be able to fund a better recruiting class than Alabama and never drive more than a hundred miles from their homes to deliver the paperwork. 

While it's probably not the best news for Razorback fans, it terrifies Saban. 

Schools that were held down have an opening to change the circumstance and perception that was once stomped into them by the Alabamas of the world. Members within the SEC like Arkansas, Kentucky and South Carolina will continue to pick off Saban's recruiting targets here and there, slowly draining his endless supply of talent.

Factor in what's going on down in Southeast Texas and you will see why Saban may be in a straight jacket by the time signing date comes this winter.

What's he going to do when after four years of this there actually is competitive balance?

Probably retire.

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