Deion Sanders Echoes Mentor Nick Saban’s Honest Confession About NIL in Revolutionary Roundtable

When Deion Sanders revealed the special bond he shared with former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, it came as a long-buried secret out in the public to many. Since Deion Sanders stepped up as the head coach at Colorado University last year, he has been an on-field rival for the best in the league, the Crimson Tide. However, Deion Sanders’ relationship with Saban dates much back!

Since Deion Sanders has learned the ways of college football from Nick Saban, the best head coach CFB ever witnessed, Deion Sanders agrees with most of the thoughts Nick Saban holds about the current values being propagated in football, including the negative ones he shared in the Capitol Hill Roundtable Conference.

So when Nick Saban made a speech expressing his sheer disappointment following the changed priorities in CFB, Deion Sanders had to agree with him. Prime Time shared Nick Saban’s views on college athletics through his Instagram. “All the things I believed in for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics,” Sanders posted.

Nick Saban also dished out the other negatives that disheartened him in the changing NIL dynamics. “They don’t care about how you’re going to develop, which is all that we’ve always done, so why are we doing this?” Nick Saban mentioned the complaint of his wife, Terry Saban, who was also a witness to the shift in the culture of college football. “It was always about developing players, it was always about helping people be more successful in life,” Saban added in the discussion hosted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Saban’s former boss, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, and student-athletes Haley and Hanna Cavinder were some of the spectators of Saban’s moving speech at the event. Safe to say, its impact was not limited to just Capitol Hill, since Deion Sanders echoed his emotions.

Deion Sanders and Nick Saban met in the Aflec commercial

It was during the shooting of the commercial for the insurance company Aflec Incorporated that Deion Sanders and Nick Saban appeared together on television, promoting the ‘living and loving’ part of people’s lives. The series of advertisements was a hit last year when they introduced the Gap Goat. This season, they made it even bigger of a hit by introducing the Aflac Duck.

Well, since Deion Sanders got acquainted with Nick Saban during his Jackson State days in 2020, Saban has gone the extra mile to caution him whenever he can, something Sanders admitted they discussed during the shooting of their last Aflec commercial. Through this advertisement campaign series, Sanders and Saban strive to spread the importance of financial awareness, especially among college students, a group among which they are highly popular.

READ ALSO: Coach Prime Deion Sanders Recollects Moment Which Proved Why Nick Saban Is the Perfect Mentor

This highlights exactly why Sanders and Saban’s values match together on so many levels: it’s because they strive for the same thing at the end of the day: bettering student-athletes’ lives. What do you think of the dynamic duo?

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