Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher calls Alabama’s Nick Saban ‘narcissist,’ comments ‘despicable’
from Victor Barbosa, with YardBarker.com/www.yardbarker.com
Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide and Jimbo Fisher’s Texas A&M Aggies will square off on Oct. 8 during Week 6 of the 2022 college football season. Both programs’ legendary leaders have created quite the buzz months ahead of the battle in the last 24 hours through with some serious bulletin board material.
On Wednesday night during an event with local business leaders in Birmingham, Saban blasted Fisher’s program for “buying” its top-ranked signing class and talked about the impact of name, image and likeness (NIL) rights on recruiting.
“I mean, we were second in recruiting last year,” Saban told the audience, per ESPN staff writer Alex Scarborough. “A&M was first. A&M bought every player on their team — made a deal for name, image, likeness. We didn’t buy one player, all right? But I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to sustain that in the future because more and more people are doing it. It’s tough.”
Saban added that his players made $3 million “doing it the right way” last year and that only 25 players were able to leverage NIL opportunities. Fisher held a fiery news conference on Thursday morning and responded.
Jimbo Fisher: “It’s a shame that we have to do this. It’s really despicable. It’s despicable somebody can say something about somebody and 17-year-old kids.”
“Nothing was done wrong."
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) May 19, 2022
Jimbo on Saban: “The narcissist in him doesn’t allow those things to happen when he’s not on top."
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) May 19, 2022
Jimbo on Saban: "Some people think they're God. Go dig into how God did his deal. You may find out about a guy, a lot of things you don’t want to know. You make him the czar of college football. Go dig into his past."
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) May 19, 2022
Fisher, who was an assistant under Saban at LSU in the early 2000s — noted that Saban called him but he didn’t take the call.
Jimbo dropped “I know things” talking about how Saban recruits. Get all of the lawn chairs and all of the popcorn ready.
Jimbo dropped "I know things" talking about how Saban recruits. Get all of the lawn chairs and all of the popcorn ready. pic.twitter.com/UN8wdVJKlG
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) May 19, 2022
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) May 19, 2022