BG, I was never saying Saban was the sole driving force behind the rule change. Redding said that was not the case in the article I linked, in fact. That was never my point.
My point is that if Saban is going to take the time to attend the committee meeting, then its obviously a HUGE DEAL to him. That, and he has been whining about it for two years now.
What I was mostly reacting to is a friend of mine who always seems to just make shizzle up whenever something reflects poorly on bammer. When Julio and Ingram got caught going on the fishing trip, he had a story about it (which I don't remember, but I do remember that his story was completey false). When the textbook scandal happened, my friend went around saying "but they only got $10 for a pad of paper!" (ad naseum and at the top of his lungs) when in reality the average "get" for those athletes was on the order of $200-300 and a few athletes were making a few thousand per semester. And so forth.
So when my friend told me that Saban was "invited" by the committee and that he was otherwise minding his business, I instantly knew it was bull shizzle soley based on the source.
That Saban is not the sole source of the rule change I freely admit. That he is the most highly visible and perhaps most passioinate advocate of it I don't think anyone can deny. The OBC thinks so anyway.
So in short, this rule change is a big deal to Saban and he went well out of his way to represent it to the committee is my point. What Redding says about the effect Saban had on the committee is almost beside the point, but no doubt he had an effect. More important, he has been saying this very publically for two years now and I think he is DEFINITELY someone who is influential. How could he not be?
Finally...and this is one reason I detest Finebaum (among many lol). Last year when Saban was saying this stuff, Finebaum's radio show began consisting of a series of leading questions. For instance, his conversation with Gary Daneilson went something like this..."I know you are a football traditionalist...do you also think the hurry up offense is bad for football as Saban does?"
In short, Finebaum spent entire segements of his show pimping Saban's POV on the hurry up. Of course, that's exactly what the majority of his listeners want to hear. The many has zero integrity.