Nick Saban on Harbaugh recruiting in South, making Power list

Alabama coach Nick Saban joined the show to talk about making Fortune’s list of the 50 greatest leaders and more. Saban got into the issue of Jim Harbaugh bringing Michigan down south to practice. Here is the transcript on the Harbaugh topic:

DP: What was your take on Jim Harbaugh and Michigan going south for Spring Break?
Saban: I don’t really [know] about Michigan and their program. I think everybody’s gotta make decisions that they feel best for what they need to do in their program. I don’t think when people design the rules, that they design the rules to take your team someplace else and have spring practice during spring break. But there’s a lot of good people in a lot of good places in the NCAA that will [discuss] whether that’s something that we should or shouldn’t do. Whatever they decide we’ll kind of roll on. We love having spring practice right here at Alabama. There’s a lot of people that have a lot of interest here and this doesn’t disrupt our playrs’ schedule, their class time and we get a lot out of it, have a lot of fun. 

DP: But you understand what he’s doing? You were at Michigan State. I didn’t know how difficult it was to recruit in the South or in SEC Country.
Saban: Yeah, I get it… But I’m not sure that anybody really knows the value of doing some of these things. If everybody has one then how do the kids decide where they go or don’t go. How much of a benefit really is it? Nobody really knows how big a benefit it is. That’s for everybody to decide on their own. I basically like focusing on the way we do it. I’m not too worried about what somebody else is trying to do.

DP: Why don’t you just bring the team up to Ann Arbor or Columbus for a week or three-day weekend?
Saban: First of all most of our team would be shocked by the weather, so that’s not something that they would really relish doing. But those are all nice places, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Big 10. … But I’m not sure it’s something our players would look forward to and I don’t really know what the benefit of that would be.

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