Nick Saban’s recent stand against the influence of money in college football has drawn a sharp rebuke from an NBC director with an NFL past. The former Alabama head coach spoke during a roundtable hosted by President Donald Trump about how colleges are losing their true purpose. That now takes a blunt hit from NBC director Marcus Edward “Doc” Holliday.

“So former Alabama Head Football Coach Nick Saban went to what was the Congress and the committee; he was somewhere talking to the government, asking them to fix the NIL issue, saying college isn’t about education anymore,” said Holliday. “When he was at Alabama, they like to set up their players to be successful and get an education and get a degree, basically, so they can be successful in life.

And I still ask the question, why do people go to college to get a degree? To get a good job, to get paid as much money as they could possibly get paid, correct? That’s why people go to college to get a degree, to try to get a great job, and make as much money as they can possibly make in that profession. So now football players and basketball players are making a lot of money in a profession that they’re paying to go to college for. And let’s be honest, man, high-level college sports have always been professional.”

The former St. Louis Rams’ RB’s argument lends another voice to an already volatile debate. On the one side are the student-athletes, who have only recently been featured in the financial pool of college sports. The other side doesn’t like how NIL has made players choose money over loyalty and development.

Moreover, coming from Nick Saban, whose Alabama teams were stacked with elite talent in pre-NIL era, the argument may seem like an opposition to the increased parity in college football. We see far more teams competing, and the powerhouse teams are no longer guaranteed a win.

“It’s just real hypocritical to have Nick Saban say that,” Holliday added.

However, the former Bama head coach’s intention was to fix the system because, in the current NIL transfer portal era, player retention has become a major issue.

“I think we need to come up with a system,” said Saban during Friday’s roundtable. “And we obviously have to do it with the president’s leadership and also Congress, probably, whether it’s antitrust legislation or whatever it is, to allow student-athletes in all sports, including women’s and Olympic sports, to enhance their quality of life while going to college.”

“But still provide [an] opportunity to advance themselves beyond their athletic career. Which is what the philosophy of college athletics and getting a college education has always been about,” added Saban. “How much does anybody talk about getting an education anymore? Nobody talks about it at all, which is the most important thing any of these student athletes can do in terms of enhancing their future.”

NIL power basically allows players to go anywhere, so for retaining players, he suggested a solution, stating, “Make them sign 2-3-4-year contracts. I’ve been saying that for a couple of years. Make them pay a buyout if they want to leave. It’s just that simple.”

However, there’s another layer to Nick Saban’s statement.

Is Nick Saban really against players getting paid?

No, Saban isn’t actually opposed to paying college athletes; he simply pointed out the imbalance created in the NIL era.

“Players need to get compensated, no doubt,” said Saban. “But it has to be done in a way where [we] have competitive balance and that every school has the same thing. One school can’t spend $30 million for players while another school spends $3 million. All I’m saying? The people out there need to know this model is unsustainable. It’s not good for players.”

Nick Saban knows the value of NIL, but in the modern era of CFB, it has shaken the entire college landscape. We even see players leave a good college program for money, even though their decision sometimes only leads to failure. Just ask Nico Iamaleava.

“People, instead of making decisions about creating value in their future, started making decisions about how much money they could make at whichever school they could go to or transfer to,” added the legendary coach.

As the debate rages on, the core conflict remains: how to balance the educational mission of universities with the undeniable professionalization of college sports—a reality that money has now made impossible to ignore.