Alabama Football: Nick Saban concerned about something other than parity

Nick Saban said something on Tuesday that was scoffed at by many in the college football world. In itself, such scoffing is not unusual for the most respected AND most hated coach in college football.

Instead of seizing on Saban’s use of ‘parity’ it is better to look deeper at everything the Alabama Football coach said at the SEC Spring Meeting.

Rather than calling Saban tone deaf, a better response is to look carefully at the problems he was addressing. Except for discussing the NFL’s parity, Saban mostly said the same things he has been saying for years.

Saban believes college football needs, like the NFL, a salary cap. He closed his Tuesday comments with the following observation.

"… I don’t think it’s going to be a level playing field because some people are showing a willingness to spend more than others where if you want to bring the NFL into it, they have a salary cap, they have all the things that level the playing field. And we could put guidelines on some of this stuff that would do the same thing."

A salary cap obviously means players would become employees. The NCAA and almost every school president have long battled against players becoming employees. Saban took the subject of an employee model head-on.

"… I have no problem with that. Unionize it, make it like the NFL. I mean, if it’s going to be the same for everyone, I think that’s better than what we have now because what we have now is we have some states and some schools in some states are investing a lot more money in terms of managing their roster than others and I think this is going to create a real competitive disadvantage for some in the future. And it’s also going to create an imbalance in the competitive nature of the sport"

Saban did talk about parity in the NFL, stating that owners realize it would be great for the league if every team was 8-8 late in the season. Great meaning good for the business interests of all teams.

Saban’s hope for the new and future world of college football is not every team being 6-6 at the end of the regular season. That would be parity. What Saban actually wants is equity. Even better stated, Nick Saban wants a salary cap for players in order to achieve fairness. Don’t mistake that goal with equality of outcome, but rather, as close as possible, fairly structured and administered equality of opportunity.

Achieve that fairness and Saban will always want the Alabama Crimson Tide to finish regular seasons at 12-0.