Nick Saban: safety study needed as pace-of-play proposal nears vote

Alabama Coach Nick Saban on Wednesday did not back off his claim that up-tempo offenses may be more dangerous to players and suggested the issue needs further study.

“I don’t care about getting blamed for this. That’s part of it,” Saban told ESPN.com. “But I do think that somebody needs to look at this very closely.”

Few would dispute Saban’s notion to examine the subject.

The problem many colleges have with the pace-of-play concern is that a rule change was proposed before significant studies have been conducted.

The NCAA rules oversight panel was expected to vote Thursday on the proposed rule change, before announcing Wednesday that they were going to delay the vote.

The “10-second” rule would penalize teams for snapping the ball before 10 seconds has run off the 40-second play clock.

According to one ESPN survey, only 25 of the 128 top-division college coaches are in favor of the rule, and only 11 of those represent the five major conferences.

Up-tempo coaches feel traditional-system coaches like Saban and Arkansas’ Bret Bielema may be using player safety as an excuse to slow the game down to a pace that better suits their playing styles.

Alabama, under Saban, has won three BCS titles since 2008.

Times’ staff writers Gary Klein and Chris Foster recently took an in-depth look at the pace-of-play issue.

Saban has maintained he was not behind the rule proposal but did speak to the panel about his concerns about player safety.

“The fastball guys [up-tempo coaches] say there’s no data out there, and I guess you have to use some logic,” Saban said. “What’s the logic? If you smoke one cigarette, do you have the same chances of getting cancer if you smoke 20? I guess there’s no study that specifically says that. But logically, we would say, ‘Yeah, there probably is.’”

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