Nick Saban, always one step ahead

It didn't take Alabama football coach Nick Saban long to find away around the new NCAA rule --- AKA the "Saban rule" --- that prohibits head coaches from recruiting off-campus during the spring recruiting period (April 15-May 31).

Saban has begun taking advantage of new technology, using video-conferencing over the Internet to get a chance to meet coaches and prospects that he would have previously been allowed to meet in person. Here's the explanation Saban offered during his Crimson Caravan stop at Talladega Superspeedway on Tuesday night :

"We had video conferencing in our office from a medical standpoint, for some of our guys to use to talk to sports psychiatrists and different things like that," Saban said. "It was just a part of our program; it's a part of our peer-intervention program. We have several people involved in that. So, we had it. Obviously, we've seen it used before and we've used it before and just thought it would be a much better opportunity, a personal opportunity, to visit with the high school coach, as well as the prospect, even though in most cases, they end up calling us."

It will be interesting to see how long it takes the NCAA to try and close this loophole as well, the way it did with text-messaging. But you have to give Saban credit for always trying to be one step ahead of the competition when it comes to recruiting, and just about everything else.