Connect with us

Sports

If Nick Saban wants to help NIL and college football, he should be realistic about it

Published

on

If Nick Saban wants to help NIL and college football, he should be realistic about it

Nick Saban has been an excellent addition to ESPN’s “College GameDay,” adding deep and digestible film analysis, well-prepared insight on teams around the country and a sense of humor that may surprise some — culminating in Saturday’s back and forth with the show’s “celebrity guest picker” from Tuscaloosa, his wife, Terry.

But he has a lot of work to do on what’s actually happening with the economics of college football, which is disappointing because he should be an important voice on player compensation and movement. On Saturday he was a disingenuous voice, painting a picture of the past that insults the intelligence of anyone who follows the sport and pining for a future that would amount to going backward.

The panel got into a discussion of the big story of the past week, UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka’s announcement that he’s done for the season because promised financial obligations weren’t met. Sluka’s agent told ESPN he was “verbally promised” at least $100,000 and Sluka’s father, Bob, told The Athletic’s David Ubben that the negotiation happened in February — and that the family didn’t ask for more during UNLV’s 3-0 start to become a College Football Playoff contender.

That’s been disputed, and absolute truth on this story is unlikely. “College GameDay” host Rece Davis said, appropriately, of the situation: “If the promise was made, let’s not let (whoever made it) off the hook either. That’s despicable, that’s sleazy, to try to get a kid like that.”

Saban, unfortunately, was eager to interject.

Advertisement

“But at the end of the day, what kind of value did that young man create for himself by making this decision?” Saban said. “Being put in this situation and then making this decision. What kind of real value does he create for his future by doing this? And that’s the unfortunate thing about all this.”

“Yeah, chasing short-term money, affecting their future,” Kirk Herbstreit added.

So let’s try to answer that question, regardless of what exactly happened with Sluka and UNLV. If he were promised this money and didn’t get it, he wasn’t trying to “create value” for himself — he was understandably frustrated about being wronged despite demonstrating value. If his camp is lying about the promise, that’s obviously wrong of them — but if he’s received just $3,000 for his work at UNLV, which has not been disputed, that’s ridiculous and unacceptable in today’s market.

The market is hazy, sure, but we know enough about it to know that a quarterback of Sluka’s quality joining an FBS program — which has millions of dollars at stake as a viable candidate for the 12-team Playoff — should have five figures in the bank before he completes a pass.

The answer to Saban’s question is that Sluka has already created value, by graduating from Holy Cross, by starring there and earning an opportunity to play at a higher level, and then by excelling at that level. This means he should and will have another college opportunity next season, and he should be paid market value for it.

It’s almost as if Saban thinks everyone is an NFL prospect — Sluka likely isn’t — or as if having millions of dollars makes it difficult to understand what $100,000 can do for the life of a young person who is not destined for millions.

It’s disappointing. Because Saban should offer a lot of value to this discussion and has made other points that resonate.

He has said he retired from coaching in part because the discussion from his players after last season ended in the CFB semifinals was all about money, and I believe him. He’s right that there can be a benefit to sticking out tough times when things don’t go well early for a player. He’s right about the high value of having a university and program as a home base, with enduring connections, long after playing.

He would have been better off Saturday talking about locker-room dynamics in this era, as opposed to advocating for a future with a combination of revenue sharing — which is, of course, court-mandated and inevitable — and a “true NIL” based solely on marketing opportunities.

Advertisement

This remains an apparent NCAA fantasy as well, though the richest programs in college football will continue to pursue the best players so they can win and profit as a result. Which will always create a market beyond obligatory compensation. Which isn’t new.

It’s just that a lot more money is going to players, in tandem with constant player movement, which means some form of players organizing and signing standardized contracts must come next. There will be unintended consequences as with any major change, but it’s necessary and inevitable. I’d like Saban to embrace that reality and talk about how that will affect his previous profession.

Instead, he said this: “We’ve turned it into pay for play, because we have donor-raised funds to be able to pay people. So that system does not create value long-term for players. I mean you’re supposed to go to college to create value for your future. Now we have guys making decisions about how much money they’re gonna make. Which I’m not sure that’s what we want the college experience to be.”

Did he seriously suggest that just now we’re getting to “donor-raised funds to be able to pay people?” Is he seriously claiming such funds weren’t pooled in the past, by the very richest programs, to pay the very best prospects to help those programs win and profit? After decades of thinly disguised — and in some cases reported and NCAA-punished — bidding wars for some of those players leading up to signing days, is he really saying that just now guys are making decisions based on money?

Anyone who cares about college football should be insulted by that. Just as I’m sure Saban was when he saw the guy who helped run his Alabama recruiting operation from 2007-09, Jeremy Pruitt, cheat in such a brazen, sloppy way at Tennessee that his coaching career evaporated over it in 2021.

Advertisement

No one really cares about that stuff anymore, now that we’ve taken the amateurism mask off college football. Also, no one is expecting coaches to start writing tell-all books about where the bags of cash were hidden.

But we can have more honest, less disingenuous, conversations about the past, present and future. Saban talks about “value” a lot, and he knows it well — Forbes estimated he made $150 million in his coaching career. He shouldn’t devalue what a free market can and must mean to the labor force of an industry like college football.

And he should whisper one of the all-time great Saban-isms — “Don’t waste a failure” — to himself before he tackles this topic in front of millions of viewers again.

(Photo: Ken Ruinard / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

Advertisement

Sports

Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit

Published

on

Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue. 

Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June. 

Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male. 

 

Advertisement

Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports. 

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling. 

“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.

Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case. 

(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)

Advertisement

“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital. 

“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13. 

Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters. 

With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.

Advertisement

Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college. 

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice. 

Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)

Advertisement

SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.

“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said. 

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Related Article

'Horrible' moments exposed for UNR volleyball players when they were roped into the SJSU Title IX scandal

Continue Reading

Sports

Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush

Published

on

Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush

Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.

“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.

Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.

On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.

The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.

Advertisement

Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.

Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.

(Lindsey Wasson / AP)

The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.

Advertisement

Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.

His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”

Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.

Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.

A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.

Advertisement

Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.

A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.

The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.

He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.

“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”

Advertisement

Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.

“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.

“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Sports

Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death

Published

on

Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead. 

“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights. 

Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.

 

Advertisement

“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann. 

One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”

Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”

Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif.  (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.

Advertisement

After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.

In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.

Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020.  (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post. 

In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. 

Advertisement

Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”

Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. 

After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media. 

Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Advertisement

Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)

At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death. 

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Advertisement

Related Article

GOP lawmakers mourn legendary football coach Lou Holtz

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending