After Alabama coach Nick Saban complained that some of his players look ahead to the NFL draft instead of focusing on finishing their college careers, one of Saban’s former players lashed out.
Plaxico Burress, who played for Saban at Michigan State, says that Saban is a liar who puts his own interests ahead of the interests of his players -- and Burress thinks it’s only fair that Alabama players should put their needs first, too.
“I was a 19 year old kid, the man that recruited me to play for him, look me in my face and told me a lie,” Burress wrote on Twitter.
Saban quit Michigan State at the end of Burress’s final season there, jumping ship to coach LSU and not staying to coach Michigan State’s bowl game. Burress says that just before Saban left, he promised his players he wasn’t leaving.
“Saban looked his players in the face at the [Michigan State football facility], said he wasn’t leaving, ‘I’m committed to the program,’ and was gone the next day. True story,” Burress wrote.
Burress also suggested that Saban misled him about his pro prospects, apparently to get him to stay focused on playing in college instead of focusing on the NFL draft.
“Nick Saban actually told me I was a second round pick,” said Burress, who was the eighth overall pick in the 2000 NFL draft. “I recall Nick Saban telling me to stay in school finish what I started, I wasn’t 1st round pick and he left for LSU before the season was over.”
Burress told Saban of college players who look ahead to the NFL, “the kids are just chasing a dream that you were.” Burress is right about that.