Miami football players should listen to Nick Saban’s advice about leaving early

Saban spoke out about his own players turning pro and discussed the situation in general about how players just want to get to the NFL without putting much thought into the decision. The same could be said about college basketball players declaring for the NBA Draft.

The College Basketball phenomenon of one and done could be ending in a few years but too many players go to college because they have to and chase the NBA and NFL money thinking they are better than they really are. Saban discussed the epidemic of players leaving early after Alabama’s spring game on Saturday.

"“Now, we have guys that have no draft grades, seventh-round grades, free-agent grades, fifth-round grades that are going out of the draft. And the person that loses in that is the player… If you’re a third-round draft pick, and we had one here last year — I’m not going to say any names — goes and starts for his team, so he’s making third-round money, which is not that great. He’d be the first guy taken at his position this year, probably, and make $15-18 million more. So, the agent makes out, the club makes out, and now they’ve got a guy that’s going to play for that kind of money for three more years, all right? And everybody out there’s saying, ‘Well, get to your next contract.’ Well, there’s obviously 50 percent of these guys never getting to a next contract. And that doesn’t mean all the rest of them got to one, either.”"

Kaaya, McIntosh and Norton are the perfect examples from the Miami football program for what Saban is talking about. Kaaya was once thought to be the first player taken in the draft (Sports Illustrated projected that in their May 2016 mock draft for 2017). Kaaya wasn’t selected until the sixth round by the Detroit Lions.

The Miami football program’s all-time leading passer has bounced around in his two year NFL career. He has spent time in Detroit, then with Miami legend Ken Dorsey as his QB coach with the Carolina Panthers and is now on the roster of the Indianapolis Colts.