Saban says he doesn't know about Blake, Dareus

Alabama football coach Nick Saban said he doesn't know anything about Yahoo! Sports and ESPN.com reports that former North Carolina associate head coach John Blake tried to encourage Alabama defensive lineman Marcell Dareus to sign with agent Gary Wichard.

"First of all, I don’t know anything about this," Saban said this afternoon at his weekly news conference. "Secondly, to me, it’s something that’s been water under the bridge for several months now and is somewhere down in the Gulf of Mexico now.

"I really don’t have much care about talking about that. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the honesty, integrity and professionalism of what we do as coaches. And if somebody does something to violate that, everybody can make their judgment as to what that is."

Citing unnamed sources, Yahoo! Sports and ESPN.com have reported that Blake lobbied Dareus to sign with Wichard. Dareus served a two-game suspension at the beginning of the season for accepting improper benefits.

One of Blake's lawyers, Wade Smith, said this morning that he can't comment on the reports because the allegations are new to him and he hasn't had time to examine them.

Ken Tysiac