Former Alabama head football coach Nick Saban went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to but his support behind a bipartisan Senate bill that aims to give the NCAA authority to enforce stricter rules on athlete compensation, transfers and eligibility.

“Congress does need to fix the mess in the courts and create a national framework so the people inside college sports can enforce fair rules," Saden told members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. "Without that legal certainty, every rule becomes another lawsuit, every standard becomes another risk, and the system keeps drifting toward a professional model.”

He also urged Congress to "bring order to a system that badly needs fixing.”

He is championing the “Protect College Sports” bill, introduced last month by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. 

The bill, if passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump, would limit athletes to one penalty-free transfer, a maximum five years of eligibility and prohibit schools from hiring a coach from another school in season.

One recent example of how athletes are now playing beyond what once was four years of college and eligibility, University of Virginia quarterback Chandler Morris played six seasons and tried unsuccessfully to play a seventh year of college football this fall.

Saben also highlighted the rapid growth of NIL – short for name, image and likeness.

NCAA athletes were not allowed until 2021 to make money off their athletic ability, until the governing body changed rules to allow students to profit from their NIL. 

Saden said Wednesday that Alabama's NIL pool grew from $2.7 million in its first year to $24 million soon thereafter. Some programs, he said, now have rosters approaching $40 million in value. A future spending cap would be covered in the bill to allow the NCAA and College Sports Commission to enforce how much a school can pay its athletes.  

Morris reportedly made $1.52 million in NIL during his last season at Virginia.

The legislation has been supported by the ACC and Big 12. But the two biggest college sports conferences, the SEC and the Big Ten, released a joint statement Tuesday saying they support the effort, but the Cruz-CAntwell bill "leaves critical issues unresolved.”

​Cruz expressed confidence that the measure can pass Congress, calling it in a statement to ESPN "the last best hope we have to save college sports." The bill would require bipartisan support to clear the Senate.