Saban: the way players acted after Michigan loss contributed to retirement

College football is in a tough spot.
I would say in hospice. This the accurate state of youth today: “I thought we could have a hell of a team next year, and then maybe 70 or 80 percent of the players you talk to, all they want to know is two things: What assurances do I have that I’m going to play because they’re thinking about transferring, and how much are you going to pay me?”
 

I don’t quite follow you here. Every professional sports league is in violation of the Sherman Act to varying degrees and in many cases in indefensibly anti-consumer ways that are absolutely bonkers. All the leagues have been granted carve outs and certain exemptions - and baseball explicit blanket immunity - by the courts. We can agree or disagree on the details and opinions and approach or how to interpret the legislation but the courts can and do provide exemptions and legal immunity.
From a legal standpoint, it's cut and dry. The carve outs and exemptions were done by activist judges who just didn't want the law applied to the sport that they enjoy. The MLB exemption literally argues that baseball is not subject to interstate commerce. I don't know a person who really believes that.

Do courts create exemptions, absolutely. IMO, they are activist judges that are creating law from the bench. We can argue whether or not that's ever a good thing.

My main point is that no one should blame a court for ruling on a case by the letter of the law. If you want law changed/exemptions/etc., that should come from the legislature.
 

Forget Nick Saban. Complaining about players asking for money when he's been paying them illegally for years... he just hates that it's an even playing field now and he's struggling to keep up.
You're just making this crap up. Quit being a jealous hater.

Two things wrong with your post:

1. How is it more "even" now than before? Are we, WI, Iowa, etc. at Alabama's level now because of NIL? Nope. tOSU is, Geogia is, etc. but those teams were ALREADY at Alabama's level. The helmet schools are still equally against each other as before, just as we, WI, and Iowa are all about the same, even though we can use NIL to get players.

2. "Struggling to keep up"??? Are you serious? He was super close to winning another National Championship this year. (I'm referring to beating Michigan and then he would have beaten Washington about as badly as Michigan did.)

Chill out man.
 

I love it with all of the heart felt expletive's from these guys after they earn 7 million dollars a year and are at retirement age. No coach should earn over 1 million dollars per year, take the rest and use it for others in need or programs.
 

You're just making this crap up. Quit being a jealous hater.

Two things wrong with your post:

1. How is it more "even" now than before? Are we, WI, Iowa, etc. at Alabama's level now because of NIL? Nope. tOSU is, Geogia is, etc. but those teams were ALREADY at Alabama's level. The helmet schools are still equally against each other as before, just as we, WI, and Iowa are all about the same, even though we can use NIL to get players.

2. "Struggling to keep up"??? Are you serious? He was super close to winning another National Championship this year. (I'm referring to beating Michigan and then he would have beaten Washington about as badly as Michigan did.)

Chill out man.
It evens the playing field by giving players way more leverage than he's used to. He's struggling to keep up with the landscape that he helped create. He's a great coach, but a complete hypocrite, imo.

And I'm always chill.
 


I love it with all of the heart felt expletive's from these guys after they earn 7 million dollars a year and are at retirement age. No coach should earn over 1 million dollars per year, take the rest and use it for others in need or programs.
Man there are a lot of people on this site who have strong beliefs on what other people should get paid and are worth.
 


I love it with all of the heart felt expletive's from these guys after they earn 7 million dollars a year and are at retirement age. No coach should earn over 1 million dollars per year, take the rest and use it for others in need or programs.
Presumably you are at the pinnacle of your profession and decline being paid accordingly.
 




It evens the playing field by giving players way more leverage than he's used to.

Ah, ok. I didn't think of it from that point, but that sounds legit. I mean, before you basically were stuck there and had to do what coach said, blah blah blah and now they can up and leave if their feelings get hurt. That makes sense and I wasn't considering that angle.

He's struggling to keep up with the landscape that he helped create.

I don't follow this though. How did Saban help with what's happening now?

And I'm always chill.
The world needs people like that too. ;)
 

I don't follow this though. How did Saban help with what's happening now?

I don't get that line of thinking either. Yes there was always payment going on under the table and Alabama was probably one of the schools more heavily involved in stuff like that.....but this whole NIL/pay for play, free transfer, unrestricted free agency mess that the sport is dealing with right now is way beyond the old haves vs. have nots.

The bottom line is that it is starting to drive coaches away. Some will refuse to have any sympathy for them based on what they get paid but the current model is unsustainable and I can see why it is turning a lot of college coaches off. Makes NFL coaching jobs even more appealing because there a coach can just coach and not have to deal with all this other crap that has been piled on in recent years.
 

Saban was not the answer. Saban was the problem. When his kitchen got too hot he left. When he points a finger three point back!
 

Ah, ok. I didn't think of it from that point, but that sounds legit. I mean, before you basically were stuck there and had to do what coach said, blah blah blah and now they can up and leave if their feelings get hurt. That makes sense and I wasn't considering that angle.



I don't follow this though. How did Saban help with what's happening now?


The world needs people like that too. ;)
I guess my thought is that decades of illegally paying players has cultivated this environment where elite players expect compensation.
 



From a legal standpoint, it's cut and dry. The carve outs and exemptions were done by activist judges who just didn't want the law applied to the sport that they enjoy. The MLB exemption literally argues that baseball is not subject to interstate commerce. I don't know a person who really believes that.

Do courts create exemptions, absolutely. IMO, they are activist judges that are creating law from the bench. We can argue whether or not that's ever a good thing.

My main point is that no one should blame a court for ruling on a case by the letter of the law. If you want law changed/exemptions/etc., that should come from the legislature.

No doubt, but every judge and jury member could be called an activist. Their individual beliefs, set of reasons or ideology defines how they interpret legislation - and legislation is horribly written or cannot account for every situation, like sports. Failing coherent legislation judges have to interpret this s***. So, my internet crank understanding is: sports’ anticompetitive collusions are subjected to “rule of reason“ when litigated. Because, or “it depends” (or depends on who you ask) doesn’t sound as sophisticated.

Kavanaugh said the NCAA monopsony should be subjected to the rule of reason analysis. Yep, fine. That analysis has seven (?) elements that have to answered in turn by the plaintiffs and defendants and the judge then issues a purely ideological opinion on most of them. What constitutes harm, damages, pro-competitive necessity for restraints or collusions. They are also supposed to take mitigating factors into account, collateral damages.

Reasonable people could have 180 degree opposite opinions on rules governing college sports and they would both be “right” because determining harm or determining future collateral damages to the product or market are ultimately pure opinion. Transfers, paying players, employee status, allowing tampering? Maybe no one thing destroys the sport or but slippery slope applies. First they came for unlimited transfers..


Brandeis on navigating this mess:

Every agreement concerning trade, every regulation of trade, restrains. To bind, to restrain, is of their very essence. The true test of legality is whether the restraint imposed is such as merely regulates, and perhaps thereby promotes competition, or whether it is such as may suppress or even destroy competition. To determine that question, the court must ordinarily consider the facts peculiar to the business to which the restraint is applied, its condition before and after the restraint was imposed, the nature of the restraint, and its effect, actual or probable. The history of the restraint, the evil believed to exist, the reason for adopting the particular remedy, the purpose or end sought to be attained, are all relevant facts. This is not because a good intention will save an otherwise objectionable regulation, or the reverse, but because knowledge of intent may help the court to interpret facts and to predict consequences.
 
Last edited:

No doubt, but every judge and jury member could be called an activist. Their individual beliefs, set of reasons or ideology defines how they interpret legislation - and legislation is horribly written or cannot account for every situation, like sports. Failing coherent legislation judges have to interpret this s***. So, my internet crank understanding is: sports’ anticompetitive collusions are subjected to “rule of reason“ when litigated. Because, or “it depends” (or depends on who you ask) doesn’t sound as sophisticated.

Kavanaugh said the NCAA monopsony should be subjected to the rule of reason analysis. Yep, fine. That analysis has seven (?) elements that have to answered in turn by the plaintiffs and defendants and the judge then issues a purely ideological opinion on most of them. What constitutes harm, damages, pro-competitive necessity for restraints or collusions. They are also supposed to take mitigating factors into account, collateral damages.

Reasonable people could have 180 degree opposite opinions on rules governing college sports and they would both be “right” because determining harm or determining future collateral damages to the product or market are ultimately pure opinion. Transfers, paying players, employee status, allowing tampering? Maybe no one thing destroys the sport or but slippery slope applies. First they came for unlimited transfers..


Brandeis on navigating this mess:

Every agreement concerning trade, every regulation of trade, restrains. To bind, to restrain, is of their very essence. The true test of legality is whether the restraint imposed is such as merely regulates, and perhaps thereby promotes competition, or whether it is such as may suppress or even destroy competition. To determine that question, the court must ordinarily consider the facts peculiar to the business to which the restraint is applied, its condition before and after the restraint was imposed, the nature of the restraint, and its effect, actual or probable. The history of the restraint, the evil believed to exist, the reason for adopting the particular remedy, the purpose or end sought to be attained, are all relevant facts. This is not because a good intention will save an otherwise objectionable regulation, or the reverse, but because knowledge of intent may help the court to interpret facts and to predict consequences.
This isn't true (IMO), especially juries. Trial courts just determine "facts" and almost never decide what a law ought to mean.

As to your point about judges, I just don't agree. There are tons of examples of judges who simply interpret the laws as they are written rather than what he/she wants them to be. Making a decision is not judicial activism, judicial activism is when judges essentially say "I know that's the law but. . . ".

I think the type of analysis you describe is more or less correct in how they do interpret it. They need to do those sort of legal and jurisprudential gymnastics because they have completely disregarded sound legal principles. They have created law from the bench and every time you create law from the bench you MUST act like you're not creating law from the bench. It's why insane ideas like substantive due process are created and differentiated by procedural due process (a phrase so redundant you know you're in the Twilight Zone).
 

This isn't true (IMO), especially juries. Trial courts just determine "facts" and almost never decide what a law ought to mean.

As to your point about judges, I just don't agree. There are tons of examples of judges who simply interpret the laws as they are written rather than what he/she wants them to be. Making a decision is not judicial activism, judicial activism is when judges essentially say "I know that's the law but. . . ".

I think the type of analysis you describe is more or less correct in how they do interpret it. They need to do those sort of legal and jurisprudential gymnastics because they have completely disregarded sound legal principles. They have created law from the bench and every time you create law from the bench you MUST act like you're not creating law from the bench. It's why insane ideas like substantive due process are created and differentiated by procedural due process (a phrase so redundant you know you're in the Twilight Zone).


The further you go up the judiciary, the more political it becomes.

A lowest level judge does not make law. The district court judge has to weigh the evidence and apply the law. They have to do what the legislature wrote or what established case law says. They would get overturned upon appeal if they didn't, like a slap on the hand.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court is political by design. What is the alternative? It has shifted with the political winds. it shifted during the Franklin Roosevelt presidency due to political winds. It shifted in the 50's. It shifted in the 80s. It somewhat shifted in contradictory ways with the conservative Roberts Court. The Constitution does not define the power of the Supreme Court. Go read it. Nothing about the number of justices. Nothing if they are the final ruler on Constitutionality. Nothing if they can occasionally use raw power and order however they want.

Rarely, but they will be activist at certain times in history. An example is the Miranda Law. They said, out of the blue, that this is the law now: "You have the right to remain silent." There's nothing in the Constitution saying that and nothing in any laws saying that, but they said this is the law.

Because I am an optimist, I think they usually got it right over the decades. Progress not perfection.

It wasn't long ago that virtually every person on the planet could not read. There were no human rights as a concept. There was no such thing as the scientific method or enlightenment. Or international law.

So I'll take the progress without perfection.
 

Great points about the role/activity of the judicial branch bottom-to-top and I love the discussion. I'm not a lawyer, but I've read a lot about the Constitution (from many different perspectives) and have been in politics/government for 50 years. Supreme Court nominations have always had some tinge of politics in them going back to the Federalists v. Democratric-Republicans in the founding era. Lower courts less so, but appointees often get to the bench by some political connection, but most of what the lower courts decide is basic and cut-and-dried compared to the issues that rise fo the level of the Supreme Court.

As per juries, there are some runaway ones now and then, but as Bob says, they look at the evidence and make a decision based on what is before them.
 

This isn't true (IMO), especially juries. Trial courts just determine "facts" and almost never decide what a law ought to mean.

As to your point about judges, I just don't agree. There are tons of examples of judges who simply interpret the laws as they are written rather than what he/she wants them to be. Making a decision is not judicial activism, judicial activism is when judges essentially say "I know that's the law but. . . ".


I think the type of analysis you describe is more or less correct in how they do interpret it. They need to do those sort of legal and jurisprudential gymnastics because they have completely disregarded sound legal principles. They have created law from the bench and every time you create law from the bench you MUST act like you're not creating law from the bench. It's why insane ideas like substantive due process are created and differentiated by procedural due process (a phrase so redundant you know you're in the Twilight Zone).

If this were true we wouldn’t need judges or juries. There is a ton of nuance, gray areas, undefined areas of law.

It’s why we have panels of judges that frequently vehemently disagree on the meaning and intent of law including SCOTUS, even when they are schooled in the same dogmatic logic.

I think it’s probably more accurate to say some judges interpret the law the way WE would, so that’s “obviously” correct. But, I’d argue people don’t interpret the same words in identical ways. Look at the Constitution…
 


Concerning juries, I’ve had to argue with the prosecutor at a jury selection over whether DUI resulting in death is second degree murder, IF that individual has a prior DUI on record. The logic is a decision to drink = premeditated murder or willful malice. Ok. So, does a decision to drive recklessly resulting in death = premeditation? Willful malice? It was an enlightening discussion.
 

I am surprised we have so many Judge Judy's commenting.

We should all care how the law works since it is catered to those that pay attention, lobby, heckle, discuss, vote. Bribe. Maybe not in that order.

We’re “just asking questions”. Sometimes that raises some defensive talk.
 

We should all care how the law works since it is catered to those that pay attention, lobby, heckle, discuss, vote. Bribe. Maybe not in that order.

We’re “just asking questions”. Sometimes that raises some defensive talk.
Sounds like something a pompous elitist would say 😂😂😂

*Complete and total sarcasm BTW
 



Forget Nick Saban. Complaining about players asking for money when he's been paying them illegally for years... he just hates that it's an even playing field now and he's struggling to keep up.
Disagree. Not that everything was strictly by the book down there, but I think Nick ran a pretty clean program. His reputation of getting guys to the NFL is what gained him the most recruiting leverage IMO.
 

Disagree. Not that everything was strictly by the book down there, but I think Nick ran a pretty clean program. His reputation of getting guys to the NFL is what gained him the most recruiting leverage IMO.
Could you define "pretty clean" for me?
 

There's not much about college left in major college FB. My interest is nearly gone for D1.

I think, and this is obviously just my jack*** opinion, the execs and presidents have cynically concluded that people will still watch CFB despite the massive changes in regional conferences, schedules, player attitudes, player allegiances, roster turnover.. Train wrecks attract eyeballs. Sports media love controversy, chaos, problems. Cynical AF. More broadly things like COVID-19, controversial orange-tinged politicians, catastrophes are great for ratings. And, like the NFL they are now catering to the gambling crowd. The idiotic injury report thing, sports betting legalization, etc.

They could be right. Ratings were purportedly up for the NCAA last season.
 

Saban helped cause the problem. When he could not control the inmates he leaves. Remember the unclean hands doctrine.
At 11.4 million per year he was the highest paid college coach in the land. So he is saying that it is okay for him to have his people negotiate his income but a kid who may have never had anything it's not okay. I don't like the impact that the NIL is and will have on "college" sports, but I like even less the contracts coaches like him can negotiate.
 

Could you define "pretty clean" for me?
Kids went to class. Let multiple kids go for screwing up. As someone else noted, high academic achievement. From what I know, his kids were respectful and good in the community. I'm sure there were payments, but where isn't there. I attended a DIII school and the stars there got $100 handshakes back in the 70's, so it goes on everywhere. Nick could afford to stay away from bad characters as his reputation let him get equal talent with better character. In the rumor mill of dirty programs, i.e. Jimbo, not much loud criticism, and that includes MSU and LSU. Again, just my impression.

One final thing, if I had a son that was good enough to be recruited by the top programs, and Saban had been one of them, I would have encouraged him to go play for him.
 

Kids went to class. Let multiple kids go for screwing up. As someone else noted, high academic achievement. From what I know, his kids were respectful and good in the community. I'm sure there were payments, but where isn't there. I attended a DIII school and the stars there got $100 handshakes back in the 70's, so it goes on everywhere. Nick could afford to stay away from bad characters as his reputation let him get equal talent with better character. In the rumor mill of dirty programs, i.e. Jimbo, not much loud criticism, and that includes MSU and LSU. Again, just my impression.

One final thing, if I had a son that was good enough to be recruited by the top programs, and Saban had been one of them, I would have encouraged him to go play for him.
Saban said he never paid players. You seem to love him and even you admit he paid players. That's hypocrisy.... if he would just stfu about it, I'd take no issue. Again, not knocking his coaching skills.
 




Top Bottom