The golf summit between Donald Trump, Nick Saban, and Urban Meyer wasn’t the NIL strategy session everyone expected. But the conversation on the course quickly veered from college sports to global politics. It certainly became eye-opening to Trump to see Meyer and Saban interested in politics.

“They want to talk to me about politics, really more so than football,” President Trump said on The Josh Pate Show. “They like politics. They’re all obviously very highly competitive people, but I would say for the most part, we’re talking politics.

They want to know what’s happening with Iran, what’s happening, what how do you do that in Venezuela? It was pretty good. You know, that was very, very successful, to put it mildly. But they always want to seem to because I play with a lot of athletes, a lot of coaches.”

Former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer along with former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis played golf in West Palm Beach and framed it as a bipartisan meeting focused on improving NIL structure in college sports.

But after their meeting, Meyer explained that the golf outing was a “serious conversation” about both the positives and negatives of sports. They even had a chance to discuss politics, as Donald Trump mentioned. Both Saban and Meyer have already faced many issues related to NIL and openly acknowledged the toll it has taken.

“There are these things called collectives, where they go out and get money from donors, and they pay players. And that’s not what the intent is,” Meyer said.

Using donor money to pay players undermines Meyer’s intent with NIL. Buying players at the price you set is what makes the entire process faulty. Just take Bryce Underwood’s example, who reportedly committed to Michigan over other programs as they had an NIL deal worth up to $10.5 million. It’s a sentiment echoed by Nick Saban. He also criticized the current NIL model as unsustainable.

Meyer, who lives in Florida, was one of the three members whom Gov. DeSantis appointed to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees. The ex-college football head coach was joined by Mark Bauerlein, the editor of First Things magazine, and an attorney, Debra Jenks.

For him, it’s not a sustainable model in which agents and collectives push for big money to land blue-chip recruits, which harms teams with less NIL money. Even Donald Trump has already taken action against it by signing the executive order “Saving College Sports.” As per this, there won’t be any third-party payments to recruit players.

While Trump discussed his golf outing with the two legendary coaches, it wasn’t the only high-profile round of golf they played. Meyer and Saban also hit the links with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Meyer called the meeting a “bipartisan” discussion on college sports’ future, focusing on NIL deals, the transfer portal, and NCAA eligibility.

Urban Meyer gets real on NCAA cases

College football’s legal landscape is a complete mess, with players challenging the NCAA to grant an extra season and challenging their eligibility. This shows how much the NCAA lacks solid rules and guidelines. Just take Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who won his six-year eligibility battle with the NCAA. The court directly intervene in every decision the NCAA makes for players.

Players are now pushing for their fifth- and sixth-year eligibility to further increase the burden on college football. But the more and more players try to push their eligibility, it creates a bottleneck situation where it becomes difficult for new talent to come in. In that case, Ross Dellenger’s report exposes the bitter reality. “A 57th eligibility lawsuit in the last 14 months filed against the NCAA,” wrote Yahoo Sports’ reporter.

“The NCAA, to give them credit, every time they’ve set a penalty, they’ve tried to enforce something,” Meyer said. “They litigate, they go to court, and they lose. There is some empathy to understand they don’t have subpoena power. They’re a powerless organization right now.”

However, the NCAA is not completely powerless, as they already denied Charles Bediako and Joey Aguilar’s plea for an extra year of eligibility.

“The federal government, to me, can’t get out of its own way,” Meyer said. “When I first heard that, I said, ‘You’ve got enough issues, man. Just keep our country safe and the streets safe.’ That’s the number one obligation of the federal government, in my mind, is to take care of its citizens, and then all of a sudden now they’re going to take on this.”

Now, Urban Meyer supports federal regulation in college sports, but not the idea of relying completely on him. Now that Meyer has made his case, it remains to be seen if these discussions will lead to meaningful reform.