The greatness of Nick Saban brought Alabama to the mountaintop and, in part, is what is taking us down. Saban said it hundreds to times over the years, he talked about how he wanted to run a program where players could "create value for themselves."

Saban did not believe in dishing out huge NIL deals for recruits. Sure there was some stuff in place, but he thought NIL actually should be top players signing endorsements because of the value of their name, not just giving Joe Recruit $150K to come or $500K to stay.

That seems naïve except for one thing - Saban could get away with that because of who he was. His track record of putting players into the NFL was as valuable to a lot of players as any NIL deal they could get. It's been fantastic in practice in the Saban years, but now that he's gone, we've got a problem on our hands.

We are not set up at this moment to run with the big dogs in NIL. Hell, we aren't set up to run with the medium dogs. Our NIL structure from the head coach down and across the alumni and booster base is probably three years behind what other schools are doing (think Ole Miss) because we just haven't needed it. Everyone else did (except perhaps UGA & Kirby) and has adapted, gotten the boosters in line, and started firing off checks.

DeBoer is going to have to figure this out quickly. It's not realistic to expect that stuff to line up over the course of a week. I would say it's instrumental to have it somewhat figured out by the time the spring portal window opens so we can play ball. Having a solid season next fall will help get others on board. He does not have the name that "creates value" for players right now. Maybe in time he will get there, but right now we are just like everyone else (sans UGA). We're going to have to pay up to make it work.