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

DESTIN — During a recent visit to Disney World, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz found himself caught between two people who didn’t get their way.

In this case, 2-year-old Parker and 4-year-old Ella Drinkwitz wanted their own cotton candy.

[ NIL king Jimbo Fisher should embrace what Nick Saban said | Commentary ]

“My wife was like, ‘You’re an idiot. You don’t bring back one bag of cotton candy, you bring two bags of cotton candy,’” Drinkwitz recalled.

At Tuesday’s SEC Meetings, Drinkwitz was pulled into a more high-profile public spat between Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher over the sticky subject of name, image and likeness.

Saban’s and Fisher’s recent dustup over NIL’s role in recruiting was a hot topic coaches did their best to deflect or diffuse.

“When tensions are high and uncertainty is at a high, people’s emotions are strong,” Drinkwitz told reporters at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Resort. “I think that’s what happened. We’re all competitive. We’re talking about two of the greats in the game. They’re both successful and have opinions on how things should operate.

“It probably shouldn’t have occurred publicly and it’s probably unfortunate that it did. But it’s a real issue and we have to find real solutions.”

How to best navigate and legislate NIL was front of mind for SEC administrators and football and basketball coaches at the league’s first in-person spring meetings since 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Saban and Fisher were thick as thieves during their last junket to Destin. In less than a year since its July 1 inception, NIL legislation has changed much about college football, including the relationship of two men who won the 2003 national title at LSU during their five seasons together (2000-04).

[ Gators coach Billy Napier on NIL bidding wars: ‘We don’t operate that way’  ]

Saban downplayed any tension with Fisher.

“I have no problem with Jimbo at all,” the 70-year-old Crimson Tide coach said.

Saban reiterated he should have chosen his words more carefully when two weeks ago he called for NIL regulation of compensating recruits while singling out Texas A&M. The Aggies signed the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class while Alabama’s class was No. 2.

“I didn’t really say that anybody did anything wrong,” Saban said. “I should have never mentioned any individual institutions.”

Fisher, who approaches his fifth season at Texas A&M, did not plan to address reporters Tuesday. He was scheduled to serve as chairman of the coaches group with Saban, the other 12 SEC coaches and several administrators met for several hours Tuesday and several more Wednesday.

Fisher and Saban were seated four spots away from each other and out of direct eye line.

Two weeks ago, Fisher railed against his former boss following his comments, calling Saban a “narcissist,” and claiming, “we’re done.”

Fisher said he refused to answer Saban’s phone calls, a reaction Georgia coach Kirby Smart found unremarkable Tuesday. Smart worked with Saban at LSU in 2004, with the Miami Dolphins in 2006 and then at Alabama from 2007-2015.

Yet, Smart said he rarely chit-chats with Saban or other coaches he worked with.

“They don’t call. I don’t call them,” Smart said. “It’s not commonplace for guys to be reaching out and be friendly when you’re competing on the field, and we’re constantly competing for prospects day in and day out. So, it’s not super unusual to me.”

Even so, the Saban-Fisher showdown fueled plenty of offseason conversation. A public and highly personal exchange between two national title-winning coaches also highlighted the lack of transparency and direction with NIL.

“There’s a ton of gray area relative to what you can do, what you can’t do,” Florida first-year coach Billy Napier said. “Until we have some formal guidelines and parameters to operate by, we’ve got problems on our hands.”

Having spent four seasons (2011, 2013-15) at Alabama coaching with Saban, Napier steered clear of the kerfuffle with Fisher.

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“We’ll let those two gentlemen handle that,” Napier said. “Both are very accomplished. Both are competitive. Both have conviction about who they are and what they do.

“It’s one of the reasons they’ve had success.”

South Carolina’s Shane Beamer, the son of Hall of Fame coach Frank Beamer and former Steve Spurrier assistant, has been exposed to alpha males all his life.

The Gamecocks’ second-year coach said his first in-person gathering with his SEC coaching brethren in February featured plenty of posturing. It just wasn’t public.

“We were in there all day and there were some intense conversations,” Beamer said. “We certainly all have our opinions and strong-minded and want what’s best for our teams and our universities. We were all professional that day.

“I have no doubt we will be this time.”

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