On Wednesday, we praised Alabama coach Nick Saban for embracing the new NIL reality in college football, and finding a way to turn it into a Crimson Tide recruiting tool.
“Our quarterback [Bryce Young] already has approached ungodly numbers,” Saban said Tuesday, via 247sports.com. “I’m not going to say what they are. He hasn’t even played yet. He hasn’t been a starter. If I told you what he’s . . . it’s almost 7-figures. And it’s like the guy hasn’t even played yet. That’s because of our program.”
It’s a great story, if it’s true. There’s a real question as to whether it is. At least one person in the know has seriously questioned the accuracy of Saban’s estimate.
Without Young disclosing his full earnings from name, image, and likeness (eventually, he’ll need to share that information with the IRS), it’s impossible to fact-check Saban’s claim that Young already has generated an “ungodly” amount of money, approaching $1 million. And Young, who surely knows the truth about his earnings, has no incentive to publicly correct his head coach.
But as we saw in the latest comments from Saban regarding his time in the NFL and his team’s decision not to sign Drew Brees, things like facts and logic and common sense should never get in the way of the agenda of the person telling the story.