Nick Saban links NIL, boosters to 33 college football coaches being fired after 2025-2026 season
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Nick Saban famously retired in January 2024 at the spry age of 72 after nearly three decades as a collegiate head coach. Following an illustrious career that included 292 victories and a NCAA-record seven national championships — six coming during his legendary 17-year tenure at Alabama — the Hall of Fame head coach called it quits and joined the media ranks at ESPN.
Within the next calendar year, the NCAA was forced to implement direct revenue-sharing payments between schools and student-athletes as part of its landmark House settlement in June 2025. And while he has often disputed there was any connection, it’s been acknowledged Saban’s retirement came at an opportunistic time before paying players really became in vouge.
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Now, as one of the leading proponents for passage of the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act that will reestablish NCAA guardrails meant to curtail student-athlete spending and movement opportunities, Saban has drawn a direct connection between the advent paying players and the decline in the job security of collegiate head football coaches like himself.
During the 2025-26 coaching carousel, there were a record 33 FBS head coaching jobs changed hands — including 13 Power Four head coaches that were fired outright, most without cause. During a recent appearance on the popular This Past Weekend with Theo Von podcast, Saban suggested the ability to pay players — and the act of asking boosters for more and more money to do so — is negatively impacting how long head football coaches are given to build a winning program.
“How do you evaluate the players? Who are you going to pay? What positions are most important? Because if you pay the wrong guys, and you’ve heard me say this before, you’re shit out of luck,” Saban told Von when asked about how recruiting has changed in the age of NIL and rev-share payments. “So when you can’t evaluate the players, and don’t pay the right guys, you’re going to pay the consequences for that in the future because you’re going to spend all this money and not have a very good team. And you’re not going to get the outcome everybody expects.
“Then the cause and effect of paying players is we’re raising money from alumni who now think they should have a say in what happens, and that’s why 33 coaches got fired last year.”
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