The NCAA’s new name, image, and likeness rules have caused quite a bit of chaos in college football recruiting recently, but Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban doesn’t think the NCAA is fully to blame for the mess across college football.
In an interview with Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated, Nick Saban actually defended the NCAA a little bit, pointing out that the NCAA isn’t all the way to blame for the problems caused by NIL, because without uniform laws across the country, it’s not really possible for the NCAA to enforce its own rules.
“I don’t know that I completely have the answer to that. 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,” Saban said.
“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.”
It’s clear that federal legislation is needed to help this process. We’ll have to see when or if that ever happens.
