Former Alabama Football coach Nick Saban is never shy about expressing his ideas, and with his new media employment on ESPN’s College Gameday show, the iconic coach now has the platform to do so without fear of recruiting backlash.
On Saturday, Saban targeted Mike Norvell and Florida State.
“They’ve always taken the microwave fix,” Saban added. “You take a lot of males from the gateway; it works sometimes, but not always. “Those guys were all at the portal for a reason.”
Notably, five players from Alabama’s 2023 roster transferred to Florida State during the offseason after Nick Saban announced his retirement. RB Roydell Williams, WR Malik Benson, OL TJ Ferguson, LB Shawn Murphy, and DB Earl Little Jr. left Tuscaloosa for Tallahassee, but they immediately discovered that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence.
Or, as Nick Saban once quipped, it’s always greener next to the septic tank.
Florida State is 0-3 on the season and faces a tough home game against Cal on Saturday, which might lead to them starting 0-4 for the second time under Mike Norvell.
To Saban’s point, none of the Florida State transfers appear to have a significant role in Tuscaloosa this season. Williams was a key component of the offence last season, but it was widely assumed that Jam Miller and Justice Haynes had eclipsed him on the depth chart. Benson played last year but had little influence.
Ferguson and Murphy were career backups for the Crimson Tide, while Earl Little has settled into a backup role with the Seminoles, as he would have had at Alabama.
Alabama was the target of many jokes about players transferring after Saban’s retirement, but except from a few instances, the players who departed were not starting calibre.
Florida State discovered this the hard way, as Saban was glad to point out this morning.
Leave a Reply