It’s been more than a year since Nick Saban made the shocking decision to finally hang up his whistle and retire from coaching after 50 years in the business — both in college and the NFL.

But that hasn’t stopped the former Alabama head coach from railing against the current college football model in the age of name, image and likeness (NIL) and the NCAA Transfer Portal.

Saban has been especially critical of how the recent changes to college football have bastardized much of what he first fell in love with as a Kent State assistant under mentor Don James in the mid-1970s.

It’s why the 73-year-old Saban admitted if he was still in the coaching game, he’d rather be doing it in the NFL than in college. That’s quite the statement, especially from Saban, who left his first-and-only NFL head coaching opportunity after just two years (15-17) with the Miami Dolphins to return to college as Alabama‘s head coach in early 2007.

“I loved coaching pro ball, and if I was going to coach today, based on the circumstances in college and in the NFL, I would coach in the NFL, because all those things in college have changed,” Saban said recently on The Pivot Podcast with Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder, the latter of whom played for Saban during his two seasons in Miami. “The whole idea of what college used to be is not there anymore. It used to be you went to college to develop value for your future. Now people are going to college to see how much money they can make. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but you change the whole dynamic of the importance of getting an education, making good decisions and choices about what you do and what you don’t do to create value for your future. You changed that whole dynamic.”

Nick Saban: College players ‘just pack up and leave as soon as something doesn’t go their way’

Saban famously left the Dolphins franchise just two weeks after declaring “I’m not going to be the Alabama coach” on Dec. 21, 2006, following a clandestine meeting with late former Crimson Tide athletic director Mal Moore that was allegedly set up by his wife, Terry Saban.

Given that experience, it’s somewhat ironic Saban is now criticizing the current model that allows student-athletes to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal and leave one program for another without any repercussions.

“And the idea that these guys are free agents twice a year, and they can just go wherever they want. I mean, I’ve got NFL coaches calling me complaining about these guys have no ability to sustain and persevere and overcome adversity because they’ve never had to do it. They just pack up and leave as soon as something doesn’t go their way,” Saban continued. “That’s what I always enjoyed about college, developing those things that help guys be successful. Now the system has changed where that’s not even possible anymore. And I think the players should get paid in college, I just think the system that we’re doing it in is not really beneficial to them and their development in the future.

“You could take the whole college experience, which I think we all value, it doesn’t exist. It’s gone. For athletes, I’m talking about. So I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t think it’s a good thing.”

Nick Saban retired Jan. 10, 2024 with a 292-71-1 (.804) career record over 28 seasons as a collegiate head coach beween Toledo (1990), Michigan State (1995-1999), LSU (2000-04) and Alabama (2007-23), during which he became college football’s only seven-time national champion-winning coach with six titles in Tuscaloosa. In addition to his two seasons at Miami, Saban also served as the Cleveland Browns‘ defensive coordinator under then-head coach Bill Belichick from 1991-94, was a Houston Oilers defensive backs coach from 1988-89.