Nick Saban says satellite camps are ‘ridiculous’
Add Alabama’s Nick Saban to the list of SEC coaches who aren’t pleased with Big Ten coaches working at satellite camps in the South.
Michigan unveiled its “Football Summer Swarm Tour” last week that includes appearances at nine camps in seven states from June 4-12. One stop is right in Saban’s backyard at Prattville High School in Prattville, Ala. When asked at a Crimson Caravan stop Tuesday evening, Saban said satellite camps are “ridiculous.”
“If we’re all going to travel all over the country to have satellite camps, you know, how ridiculous is that?” Saban said, per Al.com. “I mean we’re not allowed to go to all-star games, but now we’re going to have satellite camps all over the country. So it doesn’t really make sense.”
As detailed in a column from Yahoo Sports’ Pat Forde on Tuesday, incoming SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who called the camps “recruiting tours,” said that the league preferred the NCAA to outlaw the practice of coaching staffs being “guests” at other school’s camps.
The NCAA currently prohibits programs from hosting camps more than 50 miles from their own campus, but a loophole does allow coaching staffs to participate as guests at camps hosted by other schools – whether it’s at the high school level or a lower level of college football.
While other programs across the country have taken advantage of that loophole in the past, the issue first seemed to cause a stir among SEC coaches when Penn State coach James Franklin brought his staff to camps in Florida and Georgia last summer. Franklin will continue the practice this summer with stops in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, suburban Chicago and Detroit.
The SEC forbids its member programs from taking advantage of that loophole and Sankey said that the issue would be discussed at next month’s SEC meetings.
“I’m not sure that the others want our coaches going to places like State College, Pennsylvania, because very clearly, if we do take the approach others have, they will go places and run those satellite camps, and it will certainly, I would expect, change the tone of the conversation,” Sankey said.
Saban considers the camps a “competitive disadvantage” that needs to be addressed.
“I certainly think that we need to address this if it’s going to be a competitive disadvantage and other people are going to have these kind of camps,” Saban said. “So, I think it’s something that we’ll probably address as a conference, and I think it’s something we ought to look at from an NCAA standpoint because I think it’s best to have a rule where people come to your campus, they can come to your camp.”
For more Alabama news, visit TideSports.com.
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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
