Nick Saban reveals how transfer portal mentality is hurting college football

The transfer portal is a two-edged sword for former Alabama head coach and college football legend Nick Saban.

On the one hand, he believes that college football players having the freedom to get a change of scenery if they need it isn't a bad thing. That has always been the case, but it used to come with a loss of eligibility, and that made it hard for players who really needed greener grass to find a different home.

However, one of the reasons Saban and old-school coaches have grown irritated with the NIL and transfer portal era is that it has led to a free-for-all environment where players can get frustrated for literally any reason they want and leave their program. Sometimes it's not even about frustration, but rather, a competitive program is presenting them with a big-money NIL deal to try to lure them away.

In all, it has created an environment that will hurt the competitive spirit of college football, according to Saban. He said as much on "The Pat McAfee Show" on Thursday. 

“Well I think it’s obviously good for the players if they can make that kind of money as college players, which was never allowed. We weren’t allowed to have anything prior to five years ago. But I do think, on the development side of it, it is not beneficial to players," Saban said (h/t On3's  Andrew Graham). "I think when you have to go out and compete — and I don’t think you can be a good competitor, you mentioned it, if you can’t overcome adversity. That’s a part of being a good competitor. I don’t care what sport you're playing or when you’re playing, if it’s golf, if it’s tennis, if it’s soccer, I don’t care what it is: There’s going to be times when you have a bad play. There’s something that you have to overcome. And I think people learn to do that in the process of development and what they have to do to get better so they can compete.”