Is new NCAA rule aimed at stopping Saban?
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Maybe it is just a coincidence that the first year noted recruiting fanatic Nick Saban is back in college football, the NCAA passes a rule that prohibits head coaches from visiting high schools during the spring evaluation period.
Maybe it is just coincidence that the first year Saban is back in the Southeastern Conference, the league's coaches overwhelmingly vote in favor of the rule, which, just a few years ago, many of these same coaches voted against.
Maybe, as a Southeastern Conference official put it, it simply was time to institute a rule to protect SEC coaches from their own popularity.
Saban insists he is not paranoid. But since coming back into the league, he's been the subject of numerous allegations of secondary violations, even referred to in a story Monday in the Chicago Tribune as "the most blatant violator of the (spring contact) rule."
In the past, college coaches were allowed to evaluate high school players during the spring, but not actively recruit. That meant no direct contact with prospects. Any contact had to be unintentional and brief - although "brief" was never clearly defined.
At the January NCAA convention, the SEC proposed legislation to prohibit head coaches from making off-campus spring evaluations. It passed unanimously, and became effective immediately.
"The intent of the (old) rule was when a head coach from a big-time program walked into a (high) school in the spring to evaluate, he couldn't have contact with prospects," said Greg Sankey, SEC associate commissioner for NCAA compliance. "But with the popularity of our head coaches, the rule put them in difficult situations. There have been enough enforcement issues over this issue lately that we felt the best thing to do was remove (the head coaches) from the difficult situation entirely."
Saban said he agrees with the conference's position.
"We are put in difficult situations," he said. "We walk into a school and people want autographs, pictures, but I always tell coaches, `I can't talk to a prospect at all.' And I never do."
Saban, who said he visited as many as 100 high schools last spring, said he and his staff "have 35 instances last year of other coaches sitting down and talking with players in the spring - clear violations. But I never turn other guys in."
Saban is disappointed, because he loves going to high schools to watch spring practice, and believes such visits by head coaches help promote the game at the high school level.
Saban also knows he has been frequently accused of secondary violations such as illegal contact in the spring. And if Saban is guilty of violating the rules, then he should be punished.
But this rule change smacks of coaches who don't work as hard as Saban and Florida's Urban Meyer - another coach often accused of illegal spring contact - deciding that, rather than be held accountable for their actions, it is easier simply to make a rule against it.
"You know, I don't ever worry about what other people do," Saban said. "An awful lot of people seem to worry about what we do. Are we aggressive? Yes. But in no way do we violate the rules. People that know me know that. I can't control what other people think."
Or, apparently, the rules the NCAA makes as a result of what those people think. Ray Melick's column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Write him at
rmelick@bhamnews.com.
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