Lane Kiffin, Nick Saban Share Similar Thoughts on NIL Legislation

Nick Saban recently sounded off about NIL in college football, echoing much of what Lane Kiffin has said in the past about the current landscape.

Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban, much like Ole Miss Rebels coach Lane Kiffin, is not a fan of the current NIL landscape in college football.

Saban recently sat down with Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated to discuss a wide variety of topics, ranging from NIL to new NCAA rule changes. What stood out, however, were his comments on NIL and how he feels the current system can be improved.

“Guys are not going to school where they can create the most value for their future,” Saban said. “Guys are going to school where they can make the most money.

"The issue is, when you create those [collectives] for people, are you establishing a pay-for-play type of environment that can be used in recruiting? So now, all the sudden, guys are not going to school where they can create the most value for their future."

Saban states that a college decision should boil down to what environment is best for a student-athlete, not simply where they can make the most money due to their talents.

"You went to college," Saban said. "I went to college. Why were we going? We had goals and aspirations for how we wanted to create value for our future. Sometimes these things can be a distraction academically as well as athletically. 

"But I’ll say it again: I think name, image and likeness is good for players. The whole concept of collectives is what has created this environment that we are in, and I’m not sure that anybody really had the insight or the vision to see that was going to happen. So therefore, we had no guidelines, and now we’re trying to develop some."

Despite these strong opinions on the current landscape of the sport, the tenured ball coach does not have any specific plans in mind as to how to remedy the situation.

"I don’t know that I completely have the answer to that," Saban said. "I think one of the things is everybody having a different state law. A lot of people blame the NCAA for a lot of this, but the NCAA sometimes gets caught. … Because of the changes we’ve had in what’s legal and not, they can’t enforce their own rules and they’re in a little bit of a dilemma, too.

"Maybe it needs to be changed at the federal level so you don’t have different state laws and there are guidelines for what you can and can’t do. Players should create their opportunities, and what we’ve done now is some schools are creating opportunities for them. I don’t think that was the intent."

Saban's sentiment echoes much of what Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin has said in the past, including in his own interview with Dellenger.

I’ve said from the beginning, players should get paid. They do the work. Why that should be limited to a scholarship check, I disagree with. And they shouldn’t be [paid] all equal. That’s not what happens in the real world. Why does their best player get paid the same as their worst player? That’s not real life. There’s just not a system. It was ‘O.K., open it up!’ No system behind it. I’m sure some people saw these things coming, and a lot of people didn’t.

These collectives, you basically made what was cheating before legal. You had no rules behind it. You’ve created something that was going to have a ton of issues. To think these things weren’t going to go this direction, once you allow boosters to do whatever they wanted …

-- Lane Kiffin

Kiffin often refers to Saban as "the goat" (greatest of all-time), and it appears that he has more from Saban than just coaching strategy. They seem to share opinions on a variety of issues, including the current system of name, image and likeness.

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You can follow John Macon on Twitter at @JMakeGillespie.

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