College football coaches are not allowed to have contact with players at other schools before they enter the NCAA transfer portal. Communicating with a player before on another team – especially in an attempt to convince him to enter the transfer portal – is against the NCAA rules and is considered cheating. But Nick Saban casually admitted to doing it at Alabama.
On Thursday Nick Saban, now an analyst for College GameDay on ESPN, was providing coverage of the first round of the NFL Draft for ESPN on ABC.
When the Philadelphia Eagles selected Toldeo Rockets cornerback Quinyon Mitchell with the No. 22 overall pick, Saban casually admitted to tampering to try to convince him to enter the transfer portal.
Nick Saban on ABC about Toledo CB Quinyon Mitchell: "He was our No. 1 guy in the portal last year to try to get him to come out of the portal, and he would never get in the portal."
— Mike Rodak (@mikerodak) April 26, 2024
“He was our No. 1 guy in the portal last year to try to get him to come out of the portal, and he would never get in the portal,” Saban said.
Obviously, this is against the rules. A coach at an opposing school is not allowed to “try to get” a player from another school to enter the NCAA transfer portal. It’s a blatant violation of NCAA rules.
It’s clearly cheating, but if Saban is casually admitting to it like this, that likely means that this is probably a relatively common practice among college coaches.
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