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

McIntosh wasn’t selected until the fifth round by the New York Giants. He missed a lot of his rookie season because of a thyroid problem. McIntosh is expected to be a contributor in 2019 after a mostly lost 2018 season.

Norton was a seventh-round pick of the Panthers before being cut and eventually signed with the Dolphins. Norton has yet to play in an NFL game. He hopes to get a chance with the Dolphins this season.

Saban continued to discuss the issue with players leaving before they are ready and has changed his approach in recruiting because of it.

"“So, it’s the culture and it’s the trend, and I’ve actually changed how I talk to recruits now,”..I tell every recruit that I talk to the reason that you’re going to college is to prepare yourself for the day you can’t play football. I think we have a lot of people way back in high school, all right, that look at college as a conduit to get to the NFL. And look, I am 100 percent NFL. I’m 100 percent guys having careers, all right? But people have to be smart about the business decisions they make relative to the NFL because it is all business. When people make emotional decisions, they’re going to have to suffer some really difficult consequences for themselves in the future. Because you don’t have to go out for the draft early. You can come back and play. We’ve had six or seven guys here that had second- or third-round grades that became top-15 and first-round draft picks and made a significant amount of money doing that, so there’s some really good examples of guys that did it that way. “Not just our players — there’s a significant amount of players that are not making good business decisions about what they do…And yeah, it affects our team, but our team turns over more quickly. We just have to have more better, young guys that can go out there and learn how to play and provide depth for the team. And it’s not going to be an excuse for what kind of quality we put on the field. We’ve just got to do a better job of coaching because you’ve got to do a better job of developing young players because they’re going to have to play more quickly.”"

Miami Football Head Coach Manny Diaz has also discussed the importance of the young players developing. The Hurricanes lost offensive lineman Venzell Boulware and defensive lineman Joe Jackson early to the NFL after last season.

Several other players transferred as to be expected. Hopefully moving forward players will better evaluate their draft status. A system needs to be developed similar to the NBA where players can participate in the combine and/or their program’s pro day and then make a decision on whether or not to return to school.

Miami basketball center/forward Dewan Hernandez did that last year before returning to school. It was the right decision at the time because Hernandez was not likely to be drafted.

Hernandez wound up missing the entire season with eligibility issues but that was unrelated to participating in the combine and returning. As Saban said players need to make smarter decisions, evaluate where they will be drafted and not chase the money.