Did Alabama coach Nick Saban really steal players from Louisville football

Nick Saban (Photo by Alabama Athletics)

In case you haven’t noticed there’s a “he said, she said” conversation going on in the media between Louisville coach Scott Satterfield and Alabama coach Nick Saban.

After UofL’s speedy wide receiver Tyler Harrell entered the transfer portal a few weeks ago and then picked Alabama as his new school after visiting during the spring game, Satterfield leveled tampering charges against Saban and the Crimson Tide.

Satterfield believed that someone representing the Tide had contacted Harrell prior to his decision to enter the portal. Satterfield specifically said in an interview with 247 Sports, referring to Harrell, “I think it’s not only him, it’s happened before here. Last year we had a few guys that jumped into the portal and the next day they’re announcing where they’re going. You can look at that and know that something went on before they were in the portal.”

As one could imagine, Saban did not take Satterfield’s tampering comments very well.

“We don’t tamper with anybody, so I don’t know about anything or anybody that tampered with him,” Saban said to reporters while participating in the Regions Tradition Pro-Am at Greystone Golf and Country Club in Birmingham.

Saban then walked his comments back a little when he went on to say, “I think it’s really hard to control third parties, whether it’s direct or indirect.”

Saban then offered up comments about his own players being tampered with in the past.

“When you have a guy leave your program to go someplace else the day after a game (in reference to Alabama players entering the transfer portal the day after the National Championship game last year), I don’t have any evidence that anything happened — and I’m not making any accusations, but it makes you wonder, I guess,” Saban said. “But hopefully we have enough honesty and integrity out there amongst us professionally in our sport that people are going to abide by the rules.”

It appears that while Saban was denying that his program tampered with anybody else’s players he was accusing other programs of coming after his guys.

“I don’t really know that anybody really ever tampered with our players. I just think sometimes when things happen it makes you wonder. So I’m not making any accusations against anybody that’s done anything with our players and I don’t have any knowledge of anybody that’s done anything with any of our players,” Saban said.

So it appears that Saban is saying he hasn’t and never will tamper with any other program’s players but, and it’s a big but, he can’t control what third parties are doing out there on behalf of the Alabama football program. 

I’m not sure that Louisville’s Satterfield was buying the response from Saban.

“It’s something we have to get a grip on in order to have any kind of sanity in college football,” Satterfield said.

Satterfield is absolutely correct in his assessment about having to get a grip on this type of activity to have some kind of sanity in college football today. If NIL has created a free-for-all within the recruiting world of college football, and it has, and the NCAA has said they are going to crack down on third party recruiting by collectives, which they won’t, it should be interesting to watch the continued sparring between coaches. Non-Power 5 schools will become feeder programs for lower level Power 5 programs and lower level Power 5 programs (like Louisville) become feeder programs for high level Power 5 programs like Alabama. 

I think the bottom line for all this tampering activity, including the UofL and Alabama tiff, is summed up well by North Texas Coach Seth Littrell who told 247 Sports that he had had to fend off several programs that had come after some of his players.

“If you’re going to go behind my back on one of my guys, I think you’re chickenshit,” Littrell told 247Sports. “There’s no loyalty in that. If you go behind my back, I have nothing to do with you – ever.”

You won’t find a much more straightforward comment on the state of college football recruiting than that.