Nick Saban, Jimbo Fisher tit-for-tat yields SEC reprimand

After almost 24 hours of back and forth between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has released a statement, publicly reprimanding both coaches for their comments.

“The membership of the Southeastern Conference has established expectations for conduct and sportsmanship that were not met last night nor today,” said Sankey. “A hallmark of the SEC is intense competition within an environment of collaboration. Public criticism of any kind does not resolve issues and creates a distraction from seeking solutions for the issues facing college athletics today. There is tremendous frustration concerning the absence of consistent rules from state to state related to name, image and likeness. We need to work together to find solutions and that will be our focus at the upcoming SEC Spring Meetings.”

Here is the wording provided by the SEC on the public reprimands.

“As a result of public comments made on May 18 by Alabama head coach Nick Saban, a public reprimand is issued for comments he made in violation of SEC Bylaws 10.2.3 and 10.5.2 related to Ethical Conduct for derogatory comments and public criticism of another institution’s athletics program.”

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“As a result of public comments made on May 19 by Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher, a public reprimand is issued for comments he made in violation of SEC Bylaw 10.5.2 related to Ethical Conduct for public criticism of another member institution’s staff.”

This all started when Nick Saban called out Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M by saying that the Aggies “bought every player on their team, made a deal for Name, image and Likeness” in regards to the 2022 recruiting class.

Jimbo Fisher fired back at Saban in a lengthy press conference on Thursday, calling the Alabama head coach despicable. Fisher went on to say that someone should have slapped Saban for his comments about the Aggies allegedly cheating.

“I don’t cheat and I don’t lie. I learned that when I was kid, if you did, the old man slapped you upside the head.Maybe somebody should have slapped him.”

We will see where this goes from here, with SEC spring meetings set to take place in twelve days.