Nick Saban has been highly vocal about fixing the chaotic landscape of college athletics. He advocated for the same at the March White House roundtable event titled “Saving College Sports.” But nothing really came out of that. The former Alabama head coach has now been invited to the upcoming Senate Commerce Committee hearing to testify as a witness. Along with him is former Ohio State President Gordon Gee. Although the witness list hasn’t yet been finalized, more notable names are sure to be added.

As reported by Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, Along with Gordon Gee the invite list includes Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua and Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould. The hearing is set for Wednesday to discuss the newly unveiled, bipartisan Cantwell-Cruz college athletics bill.

The bill, named the Protect College Sports Act of 2026, is designed to bring uniform regulation and financial stability. It addresses issues related to coaching changes, transfers, NIL, media rights, and more. This is a second attempt by legislators after the SCORE Act had to be taken down due to complaints from minority organizations like the NAACP.

The idea is to garner support from these veterans of the sport. People like Saban and Gordon Gee have been in college football their whole life. Their inputs are invaluable. Old Ohio State fans would remember that it was Gee who spearheaded the blockbuster hiring of future Hall-of-Famer Urban Meyer as the head coach. Tattoo-gate aside, Gordon Gee was instrumental in turning Ohio State into the national powerhouse it is today. Both in football and in academics.

Meanwhile, Saban will be more than happy to get such a bill be passed into law. At the White House event in March, he addressed several issues in the college landscape, starting from the loss of the developmental model to the “pay-for-play” system.

“All the things I believed in for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics,” said Saban. “All the things we worked so hard to improve on… we’re gonna start seeing a slide in the wrong direction because we’ve created an environment that really does not promote personal development or success for their future.”

In the Cantwell-Cruz bill, the players are allowed one transfer without losing their immediate eligibility, but for the second transfer, they must sit out an entire academic year. Even their eligibility is strictly capped at a maximum of five years. Furthermore, coaches are prevented from leaving mid-season to take over another program, a rule known as the “Lane Kiffin Rule” behind the scenes.

To implement these changes, the bill adopts the NFL’s hiring model. But in the NIL era, passing this bill to make it a law won’t be easy. Even the possibility is very low, as per CFB analyst Paul Finebaum.

Paul Finebaum’s take on the Cantwell-Cruz bill

Although the bill’s purpose is to bring stability to college athletics, Finebaum is highly skeptical of it. He said he would be shocked if this bill passed.

“There are a lot of good things in there, I’ll spare the nation from falling asleep going through every one of them. There’s also so many restrictions,” said Finebaum. “That I don’t know how you stop all these things because right now everything in college athletics is about going to your neighborhood judge and having him save your star’s eligibility.”

“And unless there is a sweeping antitrust part of this and it’s a very narrow one, I don’t think it will matter. And quite frankly, just not to circumvent the conversation, but it is almost June. This is an election year, and I do not believe this bill is going to get very far,” added the analyst.

In the modern era, where players like Trinidad Chambliss fought for sixth-year eligibility and obtained a preliminary injunction to play in 2026 with Ole Miss, the Cantwell-Cruz bill’s restrictions are impossible to enforce. Then, when college calendars force coaches to move before the season ends, that mid-season restriction could doom the bill.