The college football world got some unexpected offseason drama on Wednesday evening when Nick Saban alleged, among a host of other NIL-related things, that Texas A+M bought every player in its 2022 recruiting class that ranked No. 1 in America. While it’s not hard to see why Saban would be this forthright about how NIL is impacting the sport while talking to a group of folks described by ESPN as “local business leaders,” it was still odd to see Saban call another program out this directly.
Aggies coach Jimbo Fisher called a press conference on Thursday morning to respond and took the gloves off, saying that he never bought anyone and hammering Saban by saying “you can find out anything you wanna find out, what he does and how he does it, and it’s despicable.” It led to a number of folks in the world of college football expressing their shock over things, with no better illustration of how wild this was than the always-chatty Lane Kiffin being rendered speechless.
Just asked Lane Kiffin for his thoughts on Jimbo going scorched Earth on his old mentor, Nick Saban: "Speechless for the first time in my life."
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) May 19, 2022
Speaking and posting are two different things, and while he may not have had much to say, Kiffin did decide to take to Twitter to dish out some thoughts on the whole thing.
https://t.co/7cSvHz7lbL pic.twitter.com/e9TRvogvgC
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) May 19, 2022
Alabama football coach Nick Saban says Texas A&M 'bought every player,' questions whether current NIL model is sustainable https://t.co/UrEL6zVWur
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) May 19, 2022
Oh boy @AlabamaFTBL Get your 🍿 ready!!! @AggieFootball @SECNetwork @terrellowens https://t.co/fehbSgUW2m
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) May 19, 2022
https://t.co/JP1KtK6YFF pic.twitter.com/Wee1rntraQ
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) May 19, 2022
🤔 @AggieFootball @AlabamaFTBL The 🐐 might ……… https://t.co/n8gYtBCQ50
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) May 19, 2022
You can say many things about Lane Kiffin, one of which is that the man really does love the internet.