Twitter can still be the place for news and information on various topics. There are plenty of trolls and AI slop on the site we all grew up using and loving. And we’ve all fallen for a tweet or two labeled “Breaking News.” We’ve shared them with our friends as legitimate breaking news, only to find out we’ve been duped. According to its Twitter bio, @No3Sports is “Leading the country in the spread of (Parody) College sports.” We are not sure if it is a real or a complete sentence, but we digress. @No3Sports has the look and feel of On3, a very legitimate and quality site for college football news, graphics, and recruiting. It’s easy for the average media consumer to confuse the two; it’s happened to this writer once or twice. The graphics for the parody site bear a striking resemblance to the real site.
While most of their content is snickered at and quickly dismissed, a @No3Sports tweet on Sunday morning made us pause and reflect, and maybe see that they made a pretty good point about the current state of college football.
What @No3Sports Taught Me About CFB
Trent Richardson Runs Over Saban
On Sunday morning, @No3Sports put out a tweet in response to Nick Saban’s comments at Friday’s “Saving College Sports” roundtable hosted by the President.
“Former Alabama running back Trent Richardson weighed in on Nick Saban’s stance against paying players. ‘Honestly, I don’t get why he’s even commenting on it; they gave my family $75,000 just to commit, plus $100,000 a month to stay at Alabama.'”
The replies were gold. @No3sports had college football fans hook, line, and sinker. The Bammers were in full defense of Richardson, while the haters were quick to jump all over Alabama.
Richardson was dominant for the Tide from 2009 to 2011. He helped Alabama run through opponents and win two BCS National Championships while amassing 3,130 rushing yards and 35 rushing touchdowns. In his standout 2011 junior season, he won the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s top running back and finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting before being selected third overall in the 2012 NFL Draft.
In the modern age of NIL, Richardson sounds like he got a pretty fair deal. But let’s be honest, we didn’t have that form of NIL back in 2009-2011. The tweet and replies, though, taught us a lot about college football today.
Saban Makes His Case…But Misses the Point
Saban is President Trump’s CFB darling and knight in shining armour. He was asked to chair a similar committee before it was disbanded late last year. Saban was one of 50 people invited to the White House to “save” our beloved sport. It was odd to review the list and see no current or recent college football athletes on it. You would think they would have something to add to the conversation.
Saban was one of a handful of people out of the 50 who were able to make some remarks about the current state of CFB. The alarm bells were loud and ringing….
- “How much does anybody talk about getting an education anymore? Nobody talks about it at all, which is the most important thing any of these student-athletes can do in terms of enhancing their future.”
- “In this current system that we have, [developing players] became impossible to do, because people, instead of making decisions about creating value for their future, they were making decisions about how much money could they make at whichever school they could go to or transfer to.”
- “We need to develop an effective system of revenue sharing, authentic name, image, and likeness. Authentic being, you have marketing value—which now we have collectives, which just create opportunities, which have become pay-for-play.”
The quotes sound like an old man yelling at the clouds. They offer more insight into why the “Goat of College Football” retired two years ago. NIL and the Transfer Portal were quickly shifting the power dynamic away from coaches and toward players. The goat didn’t want to compete in a world like that.
The Real Power of @No3sports
Saban is a media darling. He is on College GameDay and has the platform to talk about any and all of these issues. Instead, his comments were a lot like the round table itself. A waste of time that was more performative and provocative than anything that will help create any profound CFB policy.
Saban’s Alabama teams were loaded with talent. Would anybody be surprised if Richardson’s fake quotes were real? No. To be clear, we are not saying that they are. There is no proof they are real. And in fact, the same quotes were used in another “parody” post on another site, but attributed to a former Ohio State player. It’s the way social media rolls. Success with a fake quote in one area guarantees more just like it elsewhere. It’s like getting a bunch of spinoff shows from one successful TV drama. But what we are saying here is that Saban’s actual quotes and the purpose of the roundtable had nothing to do with “saving college football.”
Saban’s Reality
Instead, Saban’s quotes and the political grandstanding are trying to take college football back to a time when it is no longer possible. They also apparently easily lend themselves to some parody. We’ve had Supreme Court rulings and state rulings continue to shape the new world order of college football. Coaches have had to adapt and change to the rules. They also have had to realize that they no longer wield the power they once did.
Whether or not fan bases have embraced the era of college football depends on the team you root for. The talent floors have risen. New teams are now “good” and making “noise.” It’s harder for the old guard to stay dominant.
So, bring on more Ole Miss home playoff games, Indiana national championships, and bloated Texas Tech rosters. Let’s let folks like Saban and the Tide roll into obscurity.
Main Image: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
