Tennessee football, Texas A&M should form NIL alliance just to trigger Nick Saban, Alabama and Texas

The most annoyingly hypocritical and sanctimonious programs in college football history are the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Alabama Crimson Tide, Texas Longhorns, whichever team Urban Meyer is coaching and Penn State Nittany Lions when Joe Paterno was there. Tennessee football is finally helping to counter that with NIL deals.

Joining the Vols have been the Texas A&M Aggies, who have stayed ahead of Texas the past decade in finding competitive advantages, starting with joining the SEC, which Texas complained about before following suit. Now, though, the Vols and A&M should join forces to counter more sanctimony from those two schools.

Nick Saban, who has made Alabama even more sanctimonious, complained about NIL deals. Speaking at The World Games 2022, he unleashed specifically on A&M and, for some reason, the Jackson State Tigers, accusing them of buying players away from him.

For their parts, A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher and JSU head coach Deion Sanders responded. Fisher unleashed, pointing out Saban ‘s hypocrisy given all the competitive advantages he had. Sanders said he would address the allegation later but had a bit to say on Twitter beforehand.

Both are right, for the record. However, it doesn’t matter. Saban has pull. Texas will also have pull if A&M gets the advantage with NIL money. As a result, it’s time for schools to counter the annoying power they wield over the sport by forming their own alliance.

In recent weeks, Tennessee football has also been on the receiving end of NIL jabs. Last month, we wrote about Ole Miss Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin hypocritically complaining about the Vols’ recruiting tactics. There’s another article we wrote last week about the hypocritical rants from coaches like Saban on NIL deals.

Clearly, the Vols and Aggies are the ones taking advantage of and getting out ahead of the new ruling. Before Texas and Alabama can play their morals card, they need to form an alliance now. What if they came together to set up their one NIL portal for players and businesses?

Think about it. These two programs will never truly be rivals. Sure, they’re in the SEC, but no realignment possible could make them annual opponents. They recruit different regions. However, they certainly share a similar rival in Alabama, at least right now.

If A&M eventually loses its rival with Bama, Texas will still try to get involved to stop this. We’re talking about the school that torpedoed the Southwest Conference to form the Big 12, forced the Big 12 to fall apart by strong-arming them for special privileges and then give some fake moral outrage when that sent A&M to the SEC.

How did Texas respond? They went to the SEC a decade later. None of this is too shocking. Many people rightly believe the SMU Mustangs got the Death Penalty in the 1980s because Texas was losing out on recruits to them, as if Texas wasn’t doing the same thing.

It’s similar to how national media during that time criticized the Miami Hurricanes for blowing out the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in a game. The rule of college football is you can only do what Texas, Notre Dame and Alabama do if it doesn’t hurt Texas, Notre Dame or Alabama.

Saban never opposes things that give him an unfair competitive advantage. All of his “philosophical” opposition is to things that, ironically, just happen to hurt him, whether that be the hurry-up offense, satellite camps, or now NIL deals.

Heck, it’s not like he’s hurting on NIL deals. HIs problem is other schools are winning that battle. After all, Alabama has way more money than Jackson State, so who in their right mind would think Alabama losing a player to an HBCU over an NIL deal is unfair?

That leads this post to another point, though. Tennessee football and Texas A&M should incorporate FCS schools, particularly HBCUs, into this NIL alliance. They could form partnerships similar to a farm system that completely ices Saban out.

Think about it this way. A&M and the Vols load up on recruits, hit their scholarship limit and still have more players who want to join the program, maybe due to NIL money. What if they create a farm system with HBCU schools like Jackson State where the player agrees to go there first?

Making such a move would be the perfect way to help elevate the HBCUs and other FCS programs with more elite talent. It would also allow the Vols and Aggies to stock up on recruits while Saban, Alabama and Texas scream even louder. Given how Saban has always oversigned, he’d have no moral high ground here.

Simply put, Tennessee football and Texas A&M need to spearhead an effort that shuts up the whining of Saban and the Alabama empire. You can bet Texas will follow suit. Schools who are using this right and willing to pay players what they deserve have a path forward, and if they aren’t rivals, a partnership could work.