The transfer portal giveth and taketh, but when a legendary coach retires, it especially tries to take.

That played out when Nick Saban decided to call it a coaching career on Jan. 10. His retirement brought in all kinds of chaos in Tuscaloosa, including people trying to get Crimson Tide players to enter the portal. And not just doing it from a remote location.

“When I retired, there were people camped out in Tuscaloosa to get players to go in the portal,” Saban said Saturday on College GameDay. “If they wanted to look at somebody tampering, they should have done a little investigation right there.”

The subject of tampering took center stage this week in Tuscaloosa after Miami (Ohio) coach Chuck Martin said Alabama “illegally recruited” kicker Graham Nicholson. The Lou Groza Award winner left the Redhawks to join the Crimson Tide after the spring.

“Alabama stole our kicker,” Martin said. “They illegally recruited our kicker and stole him from us and that’s a fact. We act like it’s not. We live in this la-la world, like ‘Hey, let’s not talk…’ I don’t know why. Everybody knows what’s going on.”

Kalen DeBoer was then asked about it Thursday.

“I don’t know anything about that, I guess, that comment,” DeBoer said. “He entered the portal and we reached out to him, so that’s how it goes, right? We did everything that we were supposed to.”

Saban discussed tampering in general on Saturday on College GameDay, a show on which he’s now an analyst.

“You don’t really have to tamper with the guy because there’s always a third party you can be involved with,” Saban said.

Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.