Tommy Tuberville's Transfer Opposition is the Height of Hypocrisy

As we inch slowly closer to federal Name, Image and Likeness laws coming to fruition, one Senator is turning heads for his...unique perspective on the prospective laws.

According to AL.com's Michael Casagrande, the Alabama senator, and former college football coach, was asking his thought about the progress of the bill, and took the opportunity to note one specific thing he wants in it: penalties for players who break an NIL contract to enter the transfer portal.

Yes, you read that right; Tommy Tuberville opposes the right of people to leave a school they're at for a school that might be more successful, or offering them more money, without some sort of penalty. But don't take my word for it, let's hear it from the man himself.

“I’m not against players making money, but we got to have some kind of penalty for players breaking contracts,” Tuberville said, "So it’s got to go both ways … So we’ll continue to look at it once we get a new administration in."

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When asked about what sort of penalties would be applied, Tuberville didn't have a clear answer.

"“Well, going back. Well, there’s going ... There’s going to have to be some exceptions,” Tuberville said when asked about penalties. “But my thoughts are, you know, you sign a contract on NIL, I mean you can’t just up and break it. I mean you gotta … you wanna sign a year, two-year, three-year, you got a three-year contract. If you break it, there’s gotta be some kind of penalty. We’ll have to go through all the rules and regulations when it comes to the commerce committee on this.”

But the former coach wasn't done taking potshots at NIL, or the transfer portal, just yet. Tuberville went on to lament schools' ability to quickly turn their programs around, as well.

"It takes a different mentality coaching because you just don’t build a team. You pretty much buy a team now,” Tuberville said, “And that was a little bit forbidden when I was in coaching, but now it’s legal. Look at Indiana. They went out and bought them a football team, and look where they’re at.”

If you don't understand why Tuberville opposing athletes having freedom of movement, let's take a look at the coach's career.

In 1995, Tuberville took over an Ole Miss program that had managed precious little real success in the preceding decades, and built the Rebels into a solid, program, winning 8 games in 1997 and 7 games in 1998. At the end of the 1998 season Tuberville famously told fans and reporters he had no intention of leaving Ole Miss, saying "They'll have to carry me out of here in a pine box."

Within a week, though, Tuberville had left Oxford for the plains of the University of Auburn, leaving for a program with significantly more resources and for a significantly higher salary. Tuberville faced no penalty for bolting from the Rebels.

At Auburn, Tuberville developed a reputation for knocking out big programs, but also dropping winnable games to inferior teams. By 2009, Auburn boosters had grown tired of the roller coaster ride that was the Tuberville tenure, and fired him.

So, Tuberville took his talents to Lubbock, Texas to coach the Texas Tech Red Raiders in 2010. This time, the coach lasted all of two seasons at the helm, before abandoning the Red Raiders for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats head coaching job. He grabbed the brass ring the Bearcats were offering him so quickly that he left recruits at dinner to take the job.

Why did Tuberville head to Cincinnati? Money, and opportunity. The Bearcats' $2.2 million contract offer was more than the $2 million the coach was being paid by Texas Tech, and Cincinnati was theoretically an easier place to recruit and build than the rural confines of Lubbock. He then proceeded to run the Bearcats directly into the ground, winning fewer games with the same personnel as his predecessor in his first two seasons, followed by a rapid descent to 4-8 two years later before being unceremoniously fired.

Twice, Tuberville famously left his job for a position at a similar school, in the name of more money and more opportunity. And twice, Tuberville faced zero penalty for jumping at the chance for more money, or more opportunity. Any buyouts his Ole Miss or Texas Tech contracts contained were paid by the school he left for.

But Tuberville doesn't think players, the people who drove his ability to make that money, should be able to leave one school for another without penalty. Why do they have to pay a price when he suffered no consequence for leaving programs in the lurch, for abandoning fans and players in Oxford and Lubbock to try and pick up the pieces, or for running Cincinnati, a once mighty group of five program directly into the Nippert Stadium turf? If that doesn't scream hypocrisy, I don't know what does.

There are lots of points regarding NIL legislation that need hammering out, but if we can take nothing else away from this, it's this: Tommy Tuberville's failure to recognize the hypocrisy of his stance shows he probably shouldn't be the one figuring those things out.

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