Typically, Nick Saban’s phone calls get answered.
As in, almost anyone, almost every time.
Thursday afternoon, Deion Sanders confirmed that Saban had gone 0-for-2 on the day as Alabama’s head coach attempted damage control for his incendiary comments on the state of college football – and the specific recruiting efforts of Texas A&M and Sanders’s Jackson State program – during comments Saban made Wednesday night in Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaking to Jean-Jacques Taylor of Andscape.com, Sanders laid bare his disinterest in having a private conversation with Saban, who had accused Sanders and Jackson State of tendering a $1 million NIL deal to secure the services of consensus five-star prospect Travis Hunter during the past recruiting cycle.
“I haven’t talked to Coach Saban,” said Sanders, who had fostered a friendship with Saban after the two shot multiple national TV commercials for Aflac Insurance, to Andscape. “I’m sure he’s tried to call. We need to talk publicly – not privately.
“What (Saban) said was public; that doesn’t require conversation. Let’s talk publicly and let everybody hear the conversation.”
While Sanders professed love and admiration for Saban, he doubled-down on the need for this topic to be discussed publicly – which Saban did to a certain extent Thursday, when he went on national radio to utter his mea culpa.
“You can’t do that publicly and call privately,” Sanders said. “No, no, no. I still love him. I admire him. I respect him.
“He is the Magna Cum Laude of college football, and that’s what it’s going to be because he’s earned that.”
But …
“But, he took a left when he should’ve stayed right,” Sanders said. “I’m sure he’ll get back on course. I ain’t tripping.”