Nick Saban On The State Of College Football: "What We Have Now Is Not College Football"

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"If my voice can bring about some meaningful change, I want to help any way I can, because I love the players, and I love college football," Saban told ESPN. "What we have now is not college football -- not college football as we know it. You hear somebody use the word 'student-athlete.' That doesn't exist."

"I'm not really looking for a job, but I do know I'd like to impact college football the best way I can, whether it's being a spokesperson or anything else," Saban said. "Listen, I'm for the players. It's not that I'm not for the players. I want to see the players have a great quality of life and be able to create value for themselves. But we've gone to nobody talking about education, nobody talking about creating value for their future, to talking only about how much money can I make while I'm in college.

"I think the consequence of this could come down the road when some of these guys get 28 and 29 years old that maybe they didn't prepare themselves for when they can't play football anymore, which is what you should do when you go to college."

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"But what you have now isn't name, image and likeness. A collective has nothing to do with name, image and likeness," Saban said.

"People can give money to the university again and get a tax deduction for doing it, and the university in some kind of way shares, whether it's share revenue, whether it's buying marketing rights, which is a possibility," Saban suggested. "You can buy somebody's marketing rights as an institution, and I don't want to say cap because that sounds like a salary cap, but find a way for schools to invest the same amount of money in players, just like everybody can invest the same amount in a scholarship. This becomes a part of the scholarship."

And while Saban wants to see players get their share of the financial pie, he said the only way any of this works is if there's also a commitment on the players' side.

"Just like an NFL player has a contract or a coach has a contract, something in place so you don't have all this raiding of rosters and mass movement," he said. "I wonder what fans are going to say when they don't even know the team from year to year because there's no development of teams, just bringing in new players every year."

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