Nick Baumgardner drops a nuke on Nick Saban
Saban -- who has, of course, won four national titles at Alabama -- is literally in the middle of a situation where recruiting violations within his program were found. An assistant coach has been forced to resign and the school currently is awaiting the result of that NCAA investigation.
And if that were the only thing going here, it'd probably be enough. But it's not.
Like in 2009 when a businessman paid for stars Mark Ingram and Julio Jones to go on a fishing trip. Or in 2013 when a former Alabama player was caught giving Tide offensive lineman D.J. Fluker impermissible benefits. Or later that same yearwhen Saban had to fire a staffer after he paid safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix.
Anyone remember that whole deal about the disassociated Alabama booster who continued to sell signed Crimson Tide merchandise -- from players who still were on the team -- back in 2014?
Yeah.
But there was Saban -- who has an NCAA rule honorarily named after him -- on Tuesday, demanding answers on whether or not a few summer camps would be on the up and up. So there was Harbaugh, who correctly decided to give the old "are you seriously going to sit there and say this with a straight face?" reply.
http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2016/06/column_jim_harbaugh_nick_saban.html
one semester of non-attendance
What could be more Buckeye than that?
The man practically defines the university.
It's a red herring I think. Yes, there should be some regulation, but Saban and the rest of the SEC aren't concerned about satellite camps because of the potential for third party involvement. It's just another argument they are throwing at the wall to see if anything sticks.
Right, but it is, in my opinion, the most significant point of the whole discussion.
I just find all this nonsense about satellite camps really frustrating, because it's mud-slinging rather than discussion about the real issue. It's Jim Harbaugh vs. Nick Saban instead of Right vs. Wrong. Things are just being sensationalized, and nobody can be rational about it because they're too busy bashing the other side (Finebaum bashes Harbaugh, Harbaugh bashes Saban, etc.).
Don't you think, though, that that's the case because there isn't legitimate discussion to be had? There aren't reasonably cons to satellite camps. They will help quite a few kids and hurt none. They will help small schools all over when they are able to pair with a Michigan or OSU and get in front of the kids not good enough to go to the top tier schools and perhaps they would have never seen those kids. It will hurt the top tier schools in the southern states in a pretty small way. That's why I don't think we see substantial discussion. I don't think they have a case.
No, I don't think that's the case. I think you (and others) seem to be glossing over the potential negatives because HARBAUGH.
Like I've said in previous discussion and in this thread, and like Saban brought up, there are more opportunities for recruiting violations, shady third parties, etc., and they need to be regulated more to make them kosher.
I agree that there are valid points that should be addressed regarding camps, and the potential for shadiness. I made a similar comment a day or two ago. The issue is that Saban has absolutely zero legs to stand on here, and he's being transparently hypocritical. It's the right thing to do to call him out on it. It doesn't negate the issue, but it's hard to take Saban seriously while he is currently being investigated for recruiting violations, as well as having a long history of it happening on his watch.
I think that the ship has already sailed on the fact that there is an "AAU" type of enviornment already with college football....maybe not quite to the level of basketball, but getting close.
The explosion of camps was happening prior to Harbaugh and Michigan, Harbaugh just happened to take camps into SEC territory which made them and by extension the recruiting process open to a significant number of kids who may only travel north once during an official visit due to financial issues and costs.
How many of these kids are now participating in the 7 on 7 camps, the regional Nike, Rivals, etc camps and the like? Many of these kids are going on tours and camps all over the country already and I am sure that the same type of "AAU" coaching/mentoring is happening at those events and visits.
Saban is trying to protect his turf from a coach who actually has the accumen to pull top players so he is a threat. Do you honestly think this would have been an issue if it had been an Eastern Michigan that had been the school scheduling camps all over?
Yes, we should worry about the potential for violations with camps when there are so many other places where violations are actually already occuring. As I've said above, nothing has actually changed in the rules regarding satellite camps but suddenly we need to regulate them because they could possibly in the future become an avenue to commit recruiting violations?
"As I've said above, nothing has actually changed in the rules regarding satellite camps but suddenly we need to regulate them because they could possibly in the future become an avenue to commit recruiting violations?"
There was a time when making alcohol in your backyard was perfectly legal...and then it needed to be regulated. There was a time when walking around naked outside was totally legitimate...and now you can't. Sometimes things change.
Hmmm...I don't think you're making the point you think you're making.
The people brewing beer in their backyard were the ones doing something that needed to be regulated. In the case of satellite camps, Jim Harbaugh is doing the thing that probably needs to be regulated. So...beer brewers weren't asking for regulations, and Harbaugh isn't, either.
I get your point. I just don't think you're making it very well. Oh well. It's tangential, anyway.
he is making his point much better than you are yours. I think you have point, but I htink you are going about it entirely the wrong way.
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There was a time when making alcohol in your backyard was perfectly legal...and then there was a time when some people WANTED it regulated... and now it's largely legal.
We've even got stores all over that sell the supplies and equipment.
I disagree.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Having this going on out in the open at camps with lots of players/HS coaches/college coaches makes it HARDER for the "3rd parties" to pull nefarious crap.
It's an imagined problem, like the transgender bathroom kerfluffle.
As much as I support the idea of satellite camps and think they are, on balance, a good thing, there are some good tangential points that Saban has brought up and that Sankey brought up to reporters when he was interviewed about it once the ban went into effect. This does partially open the recruiting process up to outside influences and the concern about overscheduling and the implied pressure to attend the camps is legit.
That said, the heat from this is coming from these guys not wanting schools to come and invade their turf and to the extent that they engage in dirty pool their sudden concern for the integrity of the game is stupid and off-putting, but it doesn't automatically invalidate their concerns.
Well maybe someone who has some ground to stand on should criticize it then? Find someone who isn't pushing a self serving agenda using false pretenses to propose legitimate reforms. The only effort to curtail camps was so ham-handed and poorly thought out by the SEC that they fully repealed it.
Plus, everything was fine over the last decade when camps were allowed, and there were no violatons with regards to camps.
Satellite camps weren't a big business over the last decade. Yes, some took place, but Michigan has taken them up a level (or ten). When one school is doing 50 camps in a summer, don't you think that raises the chances of issues occurring from the point when Penn State held one satellite camp two or three years ago?
Everyone has an agenda of some sort. Jim Harbaugh has an agenda. He's not asking for reforms, because he's taking advantage of all these satellite camps. He's not standing behind a podium and saying, "Yes, we are doing these satellite camps, but I want the NCAA to impose more regulations on them." Who's going to speak on this issue that has an objective viewpoint? I mean, we could probably get some lady from The View to speak up who has no interest in sports, but that doesn't do any good. Football people have football agendas.
I agree with Magnus, you're likely not going to find a perfect spokesman here that people can't construct an ad hominem attack against as the energy for opposing the camps is coming from a desire to protect recruiting turf, it's just how people are wired.
That said they do bring a perspective and the fifty camps thing is pretty out of control and likely born of the assumption that they're going to be regulated next year. I do think regulation is a must, but it needs to be born of a debate where people can raise questions and sort out the issues raised, rather than the ham-fisted outright ban.
The biggest offender of recruiting violations pretending he cares about recruiting violations is the entire discussion. I hate to tell you, but you're probably the only person, aside from SEC coaches, I've heard worried about problems at football camps. If the NCAA either can't, or won't effectively punish Alabama, Ole Miss, Tenn, UNC, USC when Kiffin was coaching, etc, then I'm not going to care about small camps with unheralded recruits becoming a hotbed of violations someday, potentially, maybe.
^This. When Keith Jackson says satellite camps are an issue, then I'll listen.
As long as it's SEC coaches with a rap sheet saying it, I'll blast away.
you say something that is either a lie or unfair about myself or something i am involved in, and i cant respond back or that will be bashing? you lost me.
"Sabans job is to coach his football team, not worry about what JH is doing."
But what Jim Harbaugh and others are doing has an effect on how Saban runs his football program. It's relevant to Saban's job. He - and all coaches - should be involved in the discussion.
You're right that this does nothing to promote an honest discussion about satellite camps. But a) there's not much of a conversation to be had, because it's basically you either want schools to monopolize their geographic areas or you don't. And b) That doesn't mean Saban's hypocritical concern trolling should just get a pass. I'd rather the backlash start from the media than from Harbaugh, but the SEC media are sycophants and the outside the SEC media is either too busy looking for stretching violations, or too concerned with the appearance of objectivity to do anything but credulously parrot the SEC talking points as if they were totally reasonable. Harbaugh mudslinging is unfortunately the only thing that seems to make anyone aware that Saban is not a saint.
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Well, I agree with you that I'd rather have Baumgardner doing this than Harbaugh. I just think it gets in the way of the whole issue, like having political correspondents discuss Donald Trump's behavior on "The Apprentice" rather than his thoughts on foreign relations.
When he starts providing a real argument instead of self serving "I'm just saying..." hypotheticals, then he'll deserve a thoughtful response. Until then he deserves exactly the sort of rude dismissal he got.
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't see him saying that Harbaugh is doing anything shady or illegal. Saban was talking about the risks of being a coach in those situations. I'm sure he wouldn't mind at all if Harbaugh and Co. got into trouble with compliance.
Also, in your politcal analogy, Harbaugh/Baumgardner aren't the correspondents calling out Trump because of the Apprentice.
It's more like Harbaugh is Trump wanting to hold a bunch of town halls on foreign policy and Saban is Hillary Clinton saying he shouldn't be allowed to because he might be using those town halls as a cover for his secret meetings with the Reptilian Illuminati Skull and Bones society.
I assume because its an election year Brian has put an end to the NO POLITICS or you will be sent on a oneway vacation to Bolivia. I would love to speak to the Hillary comment above but better judgement is getting in my way, so I won't even mention that word that starts with P-O-L.
So in all fairness I wish people would stop the thinley veiled comments to make POL------ points to the voters on this site. This has been an unpaid wish of the people who come to this site just to GET AWAY from that crap called P------- Thank You and as always Go Blue!
Yes, and Saban should also make the point about how people and schools that violate these rules should be punished severly. Oh wait, he might not want to make that point.
I don't see why it has to be an either/or situation. All of those things need attention.
Because comparing satellite camps to Tunsil getting paid by Ole Miss is like comparing a speeding ticket to an armed robbery.
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I think it's actually more like comparing an armed robbery and the construction of a highway (and then the armed robber points out that people could illegally speed on highways).
And that armed robber does not actually give a fuck about the highway, except that it cuts off his planned escape route.
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In an ideal world, you're right. An effective, efficient governing body would be able to take a look at both practices, investigate each, and within a fairly short period of time come up with either rules to regulate (in the case of satellite camps) or effective punishments (in the case of Miss and Bama paying players) to bring the two situations under control.
Unfortunately the world we live in is a bit more messy than that. The NCAA appears to be ineffective at properly punishing schools for serious rules violations (punishments often appear weak and do little to change a program's trajectory). I am also of the mind that the court of public opinion here matters at least somewhat; given that, it's preferable that more serious issues that are going unpunished (e.g. the improper benefits) feature more prominently in the news and national discussion about the sport to spur additional action from the NCAA. News stories tend to overtake one another, and Alabama was effectively given two PR gifts in the Mississippi and Baylor crises; their transgressions hardly feature in national pundits' college football discussions right now (at least, they didn't until Harbaugh put them on blast).
It's not necessarily the case that more bad press will cause the NCAA to act, but it's certainly more important an issue than hearing about satellite camps in which the mere possibility of rules violations is at stake, as it's plainly obvious to anyone with a brain that serious rules violations are actually being committed in the SEC en masse right now.
Magnus,
It doesn't need to be an either/ or situation, but priority needs to be assessed for each issue. The NCAA, in all their glory, does still have a limited number of resources to be investigating all of these issues. I'd think their priorities would lie with an issue (kids getting paid and admitting it) that is currently against the bi-laws, as opposed to something which is perfectly legal, but might be opening itself up to shadiness.
"I don't see why it has to be an either/or situation."
Then you fail to see just how finite the resources of the NCAA are, and how little investigatory power they have.
And how even less they give a shit.
Then we should try to win the mud slinging contest too. If he wants a "PR" battle, he is going to lose anywhere outside of the south.
Well, maybe if Saban would have addressed the subject professionally, without the histrionics of podium pounding and self-rightousness, we'd take him more seriously. You heard that rant just like we did - what part of it was coherent? If you want to cherry pick 'third parties' and 'who am I supposed to talk to', and then make a case for him on those counts, feel free. But don't expect others (aside from SEC slappies) to follow.
Maybe he has valid points? I dunno, I couldn't really understand what he was trying to say, other than 'get off my lawn and stay away from my prospects'. And that just isn't good enough.
Maybe he could have phrased it like this: 'Hey, look, I've had a lot of trouble with third parties, and I can see where these camps open this up. We need to be really careful moving forward on this because it seems pretty easy for bad things to creep up before you know it.'
But he didn't...
Well, he's not the greatest wordsmith in the history of humankind, but I didn't really have any issues understanding what he meant.