"Hurt the SEC and helped the schools up north": Nick Saban issues hot take on key factor behind Big Ten's dominance

College football ushered in a new era when the NIL pay-by-play system was abolished this offseason. The collectives and NIL backers had been a detrimental factor for a lot of schools that came out on top in recent years compared to old giants like Alabama, Georgia and other programs. Former Bama coach Nick Saban has been quite vocal about this system and was completely against it.

Although he never admitted it himself, one of the biggest reasons behind his retirement was the uncontrolled influence of NIL among the athletes. Reiterating his previous stance, now analyst at College GameDay, Saban mentioned how teams other than those in the SEC rose to fame in recent years.

He claimed that schools in the North benefitted a lot from NIL culture and that has significantly impacted their roster-building initiatives.

“I do think that the culture in college football right now, with name, image and likeness (NIL) and paying players money, has actually maybe hurt the SEC a little bit and helped the schools up North,” Saban said on The Pat McAfee Show this Friday.

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He claimed that students no longer aspire to come to Alabama, Georgia or Florida, which are legacy programs with a rich history. NIL is to be blamed.

“Because if you’re making your decision about money, and someone is going to pay you more to go to Ohio State or Michigan or wherever it is—and I’m not complaining about that; that’s the way it is—then these kids are going to be more willing to move,” he added.

Nick Saban flexes about SEC's prowes compared to Big Ten schools

While there has been significant progress by Big Ten teams over the last five years in the college football map, legendary coach Nick Saban is not ready to buy the narrative. Michigan and Ohio State were the national champions of the last two seasons but Saban claims only a handful of teams cannot define a league's strength.

“I don’t think the Big Ten is really that deep... It’s not like the SEC, where you have eight or nine teams that can beat you. There might be three or four teams in the Big Ten that can beat you,” Saban said to McAfee.

Well, he is not wrong to a certain extent. The AP poll justifies this notion, with as many as nine SEC teams making the list every week.

No disrespect to the Big Ten, which has national championship contending teams like Oregon, Ohio State or Michigan. However, when it comes to the density and overall talent pool, it's the SEC that outranks all other conferences in the league.

Edited by Deepesh Nair