Alabama football head coach Nick Saban is going to be more short-handed for the team’s bowl game due to a slew of transfers this season, and he let the media know all about it at their Friday media day.
It is probably now safe to say that the Alabama Crimson Tide’s stranglehold on the top of the college football world has finally ended. The university became a national powerhouse and then an NFL factory as Saban was able to put together the best recruiting classes every year. However, the introduction of NIL rules finally allowed players to make money off their likeness, and it has given more schools around the country a better chance of competing with the top programs.
Due to the influence of NIL rules, the NCAA transfer portal has become as prominent as recruiting in the spring. Both have had a massive effect on Alabama football in recent years, and 12 scholarship players alone in 2022 have entered the portal. Four of them have moved on since then, however, other have yet to find new schools.
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Nick Saban revealed this week that he offered many of them the chance to compete in their Sugar Bowl game against Kansas State on New Year’s Eve, but they all turned the 71-year-old down.
Alabama football head coach calls some transferred players ‘energy vampires’
“I gave them all the opportunity to play in the game if they wanted to, and they didn’t. I don’t know if that’s a good thing for players, not to have to stay committed to their team for an entire season,” Saban said at the Alabama football media day on Friday (via Alabamarivals.com).
During his press conference, the seven-time national champion again questioned the NIL rules and transfers caused by them. Claiming it might have a trickle-down effect in high schools as some collegiate athletes lose sight of the fact the the “reason you go to college is to create value for your future.”
While his frustrations with players that transfer are well documented, the Alabama football coach still claimed that their week of practice for the All-State Sugar Bowl was the “most enjoyable bowl practice experience we have ever had.” That may be due to the lack of what Saban called during a Thursday appearance on his radio show as “energy vampires.”
“You have guys on your team sometimes that I call ‘energy vampires’. You use all your energy on these guys trying to get them to do what they’re supposed to do. Those are the kind of guys that don’t end up playing in bowl games and don’t end up doing the best thing and make the best choices and decisions for the team and all that because they’ve got other motives.”
-Nick Saban
The Alabama Sugar Bowl matchup versus Kansas State takes place on Dec. 31 and will serve as the first of a tripleheader of games on ESPN that kicks off at 12 PM ET.
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