While speaking with the media on Wednesday at the Regions Tradition in Birmingham, former Alabama football coach Nick Saban said he wasn’t sure what the rumored presidential commission on college athletics would be tasked with doing.

Saban, who is reportedly set to co-chair the commission after recently meeting with President Donald Trump, emphasized his commitment to help college football be better.

“To be honest with you, I don’t really know much about this commission. I don’t really know what this commission would do,” Saban told reporters. “You know, I think we know what needs to be done, I just think we’ve got to figure out who’s got the will to do it.”

“I learned one thing about coaching for all these years, that, you know, when you get into a subject like this, that’s very complex. It’s probably good not to talk about it off the cuff,” he continued. “So, I’ll find out more about it, and if there’s something I can do to help college football be better, I’m always going to be committed to do that. I was committed to do that as a coach, to help players be more successful in life, and I would continue to do the same thing now.”

Saban left Alabama’s head coaching gig abruptly in January 2024. He later cited the landscape of college football with NIL, the transfer portal and other aspects for retiring.

The legendary coach reportedly told Trump that he believed the influx of money had damaged college sports.

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May 13—MITCHELL — Harrisburg, the top team in the Class AA softball standings, unleashed 18 runs and 13 hits in three innings, cruising to an 18-2 victory over Mitchell on Tuesday at the Cadwell Sports Complex.

Harrisburg scored four runs in the first, five more in the second inning and blew open the game with nine runs in the third inning to lead 18-0 after 2 1/2 innings. Mitchell committed seven errors in the loss.

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The Tigers, who had won 12 of the last 13 games prior to Tuesday, had four RBIs from Anna Simunek and a three-run home run from Kennedy Kokenge. Ava Gross posted four hits and Jersee Thomas and Maleia Knutson each had two hits for Harrisburg. Kylie Visker was the winning pitcher with three hits and two runs allowed and one strikeout in three innings of work.

The Kernels’ Matteah Graves had an RBI triple and scored a run, while Lauren Van Overschelde also drove in a run and Jasmine Dirkes had a double and a run scored. Mitchell had Rylee Jennings, Brooklyn Schlimgen and Macey Linke pitch in the game, with Jennings taking the loss with 2 1/3 innings pitched, seven hits and 10 runs (seven earned) and three walks.

Harrisburg (13-2) takes on Rapid City Stevens at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 15 in Sioux Falls.

Mitchell (5-9) will travel to Brookings on May 16 in a makeup game from earlier in the season before closing the regular-season schedule on May 23 by hosting Tea Area.

Nick Saban was formally tabbed to be help solve all that’s ailing college athletics in the day and age of NIL and the transfer portal as co-chair of President Donald Trump‘s commission on college sports. But it appears the former Alabama coach isn’t exactly sold on need for the presidentially-mandated working group.

“First of all, I don’t know a lot about the commission. Secondly, I’m not sure we really need a commission,” Saban said Wednesday afternoon on The Paul Finebaum Show on SEC Network. “I think that a lot of people know exactly what  the issues are in college football and exactly what we need to do to fix them. The key to the drill is getting people together so we can move it forward.

“I’m not opposed to players making money, I don’t want anybody to think that. I just think the system that we (are using), the way it’s going right now is not sustainable, and probably not in the best interest of the student-athletes across the board or the game itself,” Saban continued. “I think we need to protect the brand, and the competitive advantages and disadvantages that are being created right now, and I think we can fix all that. But I think we know how to do it, and not just me but a lot of people, we just have to get everybody together to do it.”

Saban then revealed how the idea for a presidential commission even came about, originating during President Trump’s trip to Tuscaloosa for a special commencement ceremony late last month.

“I think first of all, the way all this started when President Trump spoke at the commencement at Alabama, he said: ‘All my friends are saying college football is really messed up. Let’s get together so we can figure out how to fix it.’ So that’s how all this got started,” Saban added. “But I really don’t want to get into the implementation of what I would do. I think the first thing is everybody’s got a different state law, which creates advantages and disadvantages. And everybody is trying to create advantages. So we probably need an interstate commerce type something that gets it all there. I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the players to necessarily be employees. And I think authentic name, image and likeness is good for players, but I don’t think pay-for-play is necessarily what we want.”

Nick Saban to co-chair President Donald Trump commission on college sports

Yahoo! Sports insider Ross Dellenger first reported Trump’s plans to form a commission focused on college sports. The Athletic also added the president will be “very engaged” because of the national importance he sees in college athletics.

The commission on college sports is expected to “deeply examine the unwieldy landscape of college sports, including the frequency of player movement in the transfer portal, the unregulated booster compensation paid to athletes, the debate of college athlete employment, the application of Title IX to school revenue-share payments and, even, conference membership makeup and conference television contracts,” according to Yahoo! Sports. It is expected to be a months-long endeavor.

News of Trump’s plan to consider an executive order and form a commission come with the backdrop of the House v. NCAA settlement, which continues to go through the final approval process. Attorneys filed an updated brief last Wednesday that sought to address Judge Claudia Wilken’s concerns about roster limits, and the plan would create a grandfather provision for athletes who lost their spots. A decision on final approval is expected in the coming weeks.

However, plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Berman called out Nick Saban and President Donald Trump’s discussions as the settlement seeks final approval. Legal experts say an executive order could create more problems, and Berman called for the conversations to cease while both sides work toward final approval for the House v. NCAA settlement.

“While he was a coach, [Nick] Saban initially opposed NIL payments to athletes, pushing to add restrictions and red tape through national legislation to add ‘some sort of control,’” Berman said in a statement. “During his time scrutinizing the athlete pay structure, he made tens of millions of dollars and was previously the highest-paid coach in college football.

“Coach Saban and Trump’s eleventh-hour talks of executive orders and other meddling are just more unneeded self-involvement. College athletes are spearheading historic changes and benefitting massively from NIL deals. They don’t need this unmerited interference from a coach only seeking to protect the system that made him tens of millions.”

— On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report.