Jimbo Fisher makes amends with Nick Saban over NIL spat

DESTIN — Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher said he’s ready to move on from his spat with Alabama’s Nick Saban.

Just to be clear, Fisher said so 10 times Wednesday. The 56-year-old coach concluded an at-times exasperating 15-minute news conference at the SEC Spring Meetings by saying, “I’m not talking about that. I’m moving on. I’m moving on.”

[ Nick Saban-Jimbo Fisher NIL feud seizes center stage at SEC Spring Meetings ]

A two-week-old soap opera between Fisher and his former boss stole the spotlight entering a week featuring a busy agenda for the league’s football coaches.

Saban said Tuesday, “I have no problem with Jimbo at all,” prior the first of two hours-long meetings with each man in the same room.

Fisher said Wednesday he and Saban had spoken, made amends and turned their attention to the work at hand.

“We spoke in the beginning,” Fisher said. “It’s over with. We’re done talking about it and we’re moving on to the future, what goes on and try to fix the problems we have in college football.

“There are a lot more pressing needs than our arguments.”

Name, image and likeness — the most complicated and perhaps most pressing issue — was the genesis of the Fisher-Saban dust-up.

Their sport’s competitive, combative nature fueled the fire.

“You oughta hear a headset; you oughta hear a staff meeting sometimes,” Fisher said. “I go back to that.”

Speaking May 18 in Birmingham, Alabama, Saban called out Texas A&M for enticing recruits with NIL deals. The next day, Fisher responded vociferously while essentially accusing Saban of wrongdoing he witnessed firsthand during five seasons together at LSU (2000-04).

Fisher deflected those allegations Wednesday.

“I’m through talking about that. We’ve moved on,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out our schedule. I got a 1,000 little kids coming on Saturday or Sunday.”

Fisher, who serves as chairman of the coaches group, said interactions were collegial and productive among the SEC’s 14 coaches.

“One of the best dialogues as far as a group of coaches … that I’ve been around,” Fisher said. “Everybody knows the pressing issues. We had dialogue. We had an opinion. We all discussed things in a very professional right way.”

An SEC scheduling model to address the 2025 arrival of Texas and Oklahoma was among the key issues on the table.

The league is focused on two alternatives.

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As eight-game conference slate would feature one permanent foe and seven rotating annually. Nine league games would feature three permanent opponents and six rotating.

Solutions to NIL are more vexing.

States have different laws and schools have different standards about how to apply them. The NCAA has not set any clear guidelines.

“The thing you got to have in all those things is uniformity,” Fisher said. “It has to be concrete across the board whatever each state’s rules are. Now how you get to that? The answer is: There is no answer.”

If nothing else, Fisher and Saban seem to have come to a meeting of minds. Two headstrong, highly successful coaches able to compromise might be a positive sign.

“Sometimes it takes controversy to unite, to [show] there is an issue or a problem that brings us all together to get the best product,” Fisher said. “Because at the end of the day, it’s still about kids. It’s still about the kids.”

This article first appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email Edgar Thompson at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com or follow him on Twitter at @osgators.