Alabama football head coach Nick Saban alleged that Texas A&M is paying its players. Meanwhile, Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher has denied the claims, instead telling reporters to look into how Alabama runs its sport-dominating operation.

While the public bickering between two college football giants provided a humorous offseason moment, their argument highlighted a much larger issue with the state of name, image, and likeness (NIL) in the NCAA.

“There are some concerning trends,” Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey told Yahoo Finance. “We're not seeing name image and likeness activity — we're seeing just straight payments. And I think it's important that we recenter ourselves on what's supposed to be happening here and the desire to keep that activity out of recruitment to benefit young people economically but to do so in a healthy way.”

Yahoo Finance spoke with Sankey and five NCAA Division I athletic directors about the state of NIL at the Sports Business Journal Sports Business Awards on May 18. Their concerns and references to “chaos” rang true over the following 24 hours as Saban claimed Texas A&M “bought every player on their team,” and Fisher suggested reporters “dig into” how Saban has been so successful throughout the years.

The public display of displeasure with NIL policies comes as collectives, often organized by wealthy university donors, have taken over the NIL industry with direct payments to players regardless of what their name, image and likeness is worth. A Miami player recently signed a $800,000 deal around the time he transferred. ESPN reported a Boston College receiver was flashed six-figure deals to entice him to transfer. If either offer was made prior to the decision to transfer, it would be a direct violation of NCAA policies.

“We feel like we’re in a little bit of crisis, a little bit of chaos,” Penn State Athletic Director Sandy Barbour, who was named Athletic Director of the Year at the event, told Yahoo Finance. “I think ‘chaos’ is the word that’s been used and so, I think we’ve got to find a solution pretty quickly.”