Deion Sanders warns Nick Saban about $1M NIL accusation: 'I'm not the one you want to play with'

Deion Sanders has a warning for Nick Saban and anyone else after the Alabama football coach accused Sanders of paying a player a million dollars to attend Jackson State.

Sanders said in an interview with Andscape that coaches wouldn't want him sharing what he knows about which college coaches are paying players.

“I don’t even wear a watch and I know what time it is. They forget I know who’s been bringing the bag and dropping it off,” Sanders said. “I know this stuff. I’m not the one you want to play with when it comes to all of this stuff.”

Saban said that he reached out to Sanders during a radio interview on Sirius XM Thursday, but that Sanders didn't respond.

“I haven’t talked to Coach Saban," Sanders said. "I’m sure he’s tried to call. We need to talk publicly — not privately. What you said was public. That doesn’t require a conversation. Let’s talk publicly and let everybody hear the conversation.”

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Sanders said he still admires and respects Saban, but that Saban stepped out of bounds with his comments, which also targeted Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher. The SEC issued a public reprimand to Saban and Fisher for their comments Thursday.

Sanders denied that Travis Hunter, the nation's top college football prospect in the class of 2022, has a million-dollar NIL deal.

“I don’t make a million. Travis ain’t built like that. Travis ain’t chasing a dollar. Travis is chasing greatness. Travis and his family don’t get down like that,” Sanders said. “They never came to us in search of the bag. They’re not built like that. This kid wants to be great.

Andscape reported that Hunter has two NIL deals and two more pending worth less than $250,000.

Sanders said that Jackson State doesn't have the same financial support that Power Five schools like Alabama has and that he wants other coaches to leave him out of the "mess" that they're involved in.

“Coach Saban wasn’t talking to me. Coach Saban wasn’t talking to Jimbo Fisher," Sanders said. "He was talking to his boosters. He was talking to his alumni. He was talking to his givers. He was trying to get money. That was what he was doing. He was just using us to get to where he was trying to get to.”

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Deion Sanders has warning for Nick Saban after NIL accusation