Alabama coach Nick Saban may be on the wrong side of 70, but he can backpedal like an All-Pro defensive back.
In a session with reporters on Tuesday, Saban was asked about the recent brouhaha between him and Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher regarding the name, image, and likeness dynamic.
It started fewer than two weeks ago, when Saban said that Texas A&M “bought” its entire recruiting class. Fisher angrily responded, essentially accusing Saban of chronic cheating and inviting reporters to dig into Saban’s background.
“I didn’t really say that anybody did anything wrong,” Saban said Tuesday, via SI.com. “I’ve said everything I’m going to say about this. I should have never mentioned any individual institutions, as I’ve said before.”
Saban repeatedly insisted on Tuesday that he accused no one of wrongdoing. However, it remains a violation for programs to be directly involved in arranging NIL payments, or to make payments directly to players. By saying Texas A&M “bought” its recruiting class, a reasonable person easily could conclude that Saban was accused Texas A&M and Fisher of crossing the line.
Amazingly, Saban doesn’t seem to think Fisher crossed the line in the things he said about Saban. He said Tuesday that he “has no problem with Jimbo at all.”
Either Saban has far thicker skin than he’s ever before displayed, or he’s lying. Possibly, he doesn’t want to engage Fisher on the issue of whatever it is he’s accusing Saban of doing in the past in order to keep the question from escalating to the point at which someone will accept Fisher’s invitation to start poking around into Saban’s past practices.
Regardless, Saban badly wants to move on. We’ll see if Fisher is willing to do the same. Their teams meet on October 8.