UPDATE: UA trustee calls Saban report "harmful"

TUSCALOOSA | John McMahon, a member of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees, said Thursday that a Miami Herald report of a $57 million offer from UA to Miami Dolphin head coach Nick Saban was “a complete and total fabrication.”

McMahon, who spoke to The Tuscaloosa News in a telephone interview, added that the report was “harmful to the University of Alabama and harmful to college athletics.”

The Miami Herald report, which indicated that Saban would remain with the Dolphins, stated that UA director of athletics Mal Moore had offered Saban a 10-year contract at $5 million annually, along with a $7 million signing bonus. Those figures would far exceed the compensation of any current college head coach.

“It is stunning to me that a responsible newspaper would report that,” McMahon said. “They obviously did not contact anyone at the University of Alabama because that report is totally and completely false.”