“This was BAD, it was totally tasteless”: Marcus Spears rips into his former coach Nick Saban over his comments last week
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Last week was quite controversial when it came to college football as Alabama’s coach Nick Saban made some pretty distasteful comments about his fellow coaches Jimbo Fischer and Deion Sanders accusing them of paying money to buy players. He believes Alabama did not get the top class of players this year as all of them were bought by the other teams. In addition to this, he accused Sanders of paying a million dollars to Travis Hunter to join Jackson State University.
There was some serious backlash following these comments which is expected, people accused Saban of raising his voice because he did not get his way this time and that he is accusing his peers of doing the same thing that he does. In addition to this, the NIL allows colleges to pay players so it is not as if the teams were committing a crime. Jimbo Fischer replied and told that Saban thinks too much of himself and considers himself a god while in reality, he is a demon. Deion Sanders also responded by inviting Saban to have a conversation about this in public so that he can clarify all doubts.
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“We are not oblivious to the kind of connotations that go along with saying a college ‘bought a player’ “: Marcus Spears on Nick Saban
First Take analyst Marcus Spears who is an alumnus of LSU was coached by Nick Saban while he was playing defensive end in college before he went on to play in the NFL. He did not like the comments that his former coach made and believed them to be in bad taste. “If Nick Saban would have said Texas A&M had a collective, and if he explained how you can have an advantage within how the structure of college football is right now, I don’t think anyone would have had a problem right now.” Marcus Spears believes Saban should know better and put his words in a better way.
“If I say a University bought players, what type of connotation do you think that would have to the public? Coming from the most visible recognizable face in college football. The guy everyone deems as the guy that carries the torch for the game.” Spears elaborated on how this paints a negative picture for all of college football. Coming to the allegations made against Deion Sanders, Spears goes on to say, “Travis Hunter is the no. 1 player in the country who plays defensive back and wide receiver and he is going to go play for the greatest defensive back to ever play in the NFL, why don’t we mention that as being a part of the reason he went to play at Jackson State, an HBCU? If he got a million dollars, so what? If it was within the rules and the structures of the NIL, this was BAD,” Spears does not see anything wrong in paying the players if it was well within the rules of what teams could do. Travis Hunter is a player who wants to be great and learning from Deion Sanders on a daily basis can take him to greatness as he is a man of discipline.
“For him to call out those two specific individuals, one who he has done and athflex commercial with and one who he has coached with, I was on the team that won a national championship where Jimbo Fischer played a hell of a role, he was the guy that was more prevalent in my recruitment,” Spears said.
“This was totally tasteless, it was poor to say that they bought players when you come out and talk about an assistant coach who helped to get you to where you are and you helped him to get where he is, and then Deion Sanders who has the type of cache and responsibility to football in general and not to mention going back to an HBCU to elevate the profile of that conference and put attention on those programs, I would tell Nick Saban that on a phone conversation or to his face. It was not good to say,” Marcus concludes.
Not one person has come out in support of Saban as when he got the top recruiting class he has never raised any issues. In the last 13 years, he has landed 9 of the top recruiting classes and he has seven national championships. In this situation, he did not get his way and that frustration gave rise to these comments.
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Sumedh Joshi
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