No sarcasm. When Saban as hired, I was fine with all the backlash he received and the numerous comments made that he would leave in 3 or 4 years. It didn't bother me. I am fine with his assholish attitude to an extent (sometimes coach speak is enough, no need to mention Pearl Harbor). I was ok with all of that because Alabama does have a booster problem, and it's been apparent for a long, long time. But I knew that it would take someone like Saban being a total dick to put a stop to a lot of the bullshit. My grandfather has had the hookup since the late 70's. Not a major player by any means, but gave enough money to have some privileges. A lot of the information and accessibility has been shut off to a lot of people (some bad people) since Saban took the reigns. Allegedly, it was the only way he'd take the job. UA NEEDED someone like him to help clean a lot of the bullshit up. If this turns out to be as bad as it appears, I'm going to be super pissed.
I refuse to believe a coach as detailed and controlling as Saban is could let something like this go on without having knowledge of it. I know that Saban does a lot of shit that he shouldn't, bump rules, etc etc, but I don't believe he is guilty of the major stuff like paying players or giving kitchens. I believe he's too arrogant of person to do things the easy way. I believe he's too arrogant to give into the games of kids who haven't proven shit out of high school. But if this shit winds up bad, like the way it's looking? I'm going to have doubts. Because he is too controlling to not know this was going on. Which means he knew about it, and didn't stop it.