Nick Saban spoke at Capitol Hill on Tuesday about the state of college athletics.

College athletics has changed more in the last 5 years than ever. NIL and the transfer portal have turned recruiting into a bidding war for players and trying to retain your own team. College coaches are working more than ever and players have very little alliance with their school or coaches.

Some college coaches are leaving to go coach in the NFL. Coach Saban was not shy and shared his thoughts on how college athletics are going in a negative direction. Coach Saban is upset at the stage of college athletics and thinks it threatens the foundation of the point of college. College athletics used to be the way to help young people grow, progress, and get to the pros.

“All the things that I believed in for all these years, 50 years of coaching no longer exist in college athletics,” said Coach Saban.

College athletics used to be more of forming a family with teammates, coaches, and the local community. Now it is about how much money the athlete can make and in a lot of cases if the school can not pay the correct amount then the athlete will go to a school where they can.

The big problem with this is there are zero rules in place. Coach Saban wants a good quality of life and still a developmental program for the athletes. There needs to be a system of rules put in place to regulate some of the things that are changing. Saban throughout his coaching career has poured everything he could into coaching and helping young people be better human beings and forming relationships.

It is harder to do that when you are losing 10-15 transfers every season. The roster turnover is more like the NFL rather than college athletics.

Saban went on to talk about the unfairness of the college game. The game is a bidding war and whatever school has the most money gets the best players and wins the most. It is less about coaching and developing and more about buying players. College sports have changed a lot and will continue to change.

We will have to wait and see what happens next.