Nick Saban was on the couch inside his Alabama office. Maurice Smith and his parents were seated in front of him. A member of the Tide's compliance department was also in the room.

This was last Tuesday, the latest chapter in this ongoing and ugly fight that has become a national story.

Smith wants to leave Alabama and join Georgia as a graduate transfer. The senior defensive back feels -- as a graduate -- that he has earned the right to transfer wherever he wants, even if it's within the SEC.

Saban has made it clear both privately and publicly that he isn't going to let Smith transfer to Georgia or any other SEC school.

The contentious meeting last Tuesday didn't change anything.

It was a heated back-and-forth between Smith, his family and Saban that went on for around an hour.

Smith and his family explained to Saban -- as they had before -- why Smith wants to leave Alabama, why they feel he should be able to transfer wherever he wants and how disappointed they've been with Alabama's handling of this process.

They weren't getting the responses they wanted. That led to their frustration progressively growing.

Eventually, Smith's mother, Samyra, asked Maurice and his father to leave the room.

What ensued was a 20-minute verbal battle between Smith's mother and Saban.

According to Samyra Smith, it ended with an angry Saban repeating that he doesn't feel like it's in Smith's best interest to leave Alabama, that he doesn't think Smith should be able to transfer to another SEC school and that he's not going to do something that he doesn't agree with.

Samyra Smith said Saban closed with "That's all I've got to say," then got up and left the room, leaving her and the member of the compliance department surprised and sitting in Saban's office by themselves.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Smith's mother looked at the compliance official, smiled and said, "Alright. I guess the meeting is over."

That's where we are in this situation. Smith, who graduated from Alabama on Saturday, wants to go to Georgia. Saban isn't going to let him. Neither side is budging.

"(The situation) is very disappointing just because now that we've come to this point and it's a very heated situation," Maurice Smith told AL.com. "There's a lot of adversity that's been thrown at me, the university, coach Saban, and it's really making it something that it's really not. I believe it was something that was just as simple as a transfer. But now it's kind of transpired into something far greater, and a lot of bad things have been coming out of this. It's just very disappointing because I never meant to hurt anyone. ... I just feel like I've earned the right to better myself my last year and go into this season without any doubts."

***

This is how we got here and why this respected veteran who was going to enter fall camp as Alabama's first-team nickel back thinks it's best for him to finish his college career elsewhere.

It essentially started with an email last November.

Working around football, Smith's mother has seen players at various schools become scholarship limit casualties and have their scholarships pulled. She says she was concerned that could happen to Maurice, who had gone from the favorite to win the Tide's nickel back job entering fall camp last year to playing strictly on special teams.

So she sent an email to Saban. In it, she expressed an interest in talking either in person or on the phone to talk about post-graduation plans since Maurice was originally on pace to graduate in May.

To be clear, Maurice wasn't even thinking about transferring at that point and didn't even know that his mother had sent that email.

So that made it a surprise when Saban called him into his office the next day and exploded.

This is the way Maurice described that meeting to his parents. Before he even sat down, Smith said Saban yelled at him, "You want to know why you're not playing? You're the reason you're not playing."

Smith told his parents that there were other harsh and demeaning critiques. What made it worse is that Smith, who was already frustrated with how the season was playing out, had no idea why he was being yelled at until later in the meeting.

"I think that meeting right there severed the umbilical cord because Maurice was like, 'I'm not able to trust this man,'" Maurice's father, Maurice I, said.

"It was unwarranted and unprovoked," Samyra Smith said.

***

Smith's mother could tell something was wrong once he got home to Houston after Alabama finished spring practice.

He looked stressed and uneasy. He typically wakes up early and goes to work out when back home. Instead, he was just sleeping in and lying in bed.

It was surprising to his parents because Maurice had played well during the spring and was again set to enter fall camp as Alabama's first-team nickel back.

So why was he stressing?

Some things that were said during his spring exit meeting with Saban contributed to it.

Saban, according to Smith's father, told Smith that he would prefer to move cornerback Minkah Fitzpatrick inside to play nickel back when Alabama goes into its nickel and dime defenses. Why was that a problem? Saban had already told Smith that he feels like Smith is a better fit at safety than at cornerback. "So Maurice was thinking, 'OK, so if you find someone that can come in and play corner, that means that Minkah will be at (nickel back) and I'll be out.'" Smith's father said.

Smith came out of that meeting feeling like it was going to be last year all over again and thinking that he could end up like former Alabama defensive back Bradley Sylve and Jarrick Williams. Both were sold on returning to school for their senior seasons rather than transferring. Both ended up playing limited roles.

"He didn't want to take a chance at that happening," Smith's father said. "He felt like he was doing everything that he could and that his all was not good enough."

So Smith began to think about transferring and asked Saban in June for permission to be able to talk to other schools.

That's when the situation started to get ugly.

***

Smith thinking about leaving caught Saban off guard. That's what Saban told Smith while emphasizing that it didn't make sense for Smith to leave since he was atop the depth chart at nickel back.

What's important to note is that Smith was only thinking about transferring at that point. There was still a chance that he could return to Alabama. He simply wanted to explore his options and talk to other schools.

That changed the day after that meeting with Saban.

"On Friday, June 17, I arrived at the athletic facility locker room to find my locker cleaned out and all of my personal belongings in the trash ... underneath trash," Smith wrote in a letter to the University of Alabama appeals committee after his first attempt to transfer to Georgia was denied. "These personal items included my family photos, written goals, inspirational and sentimental items memorializing my deceased former friend, roommate and teammate, Altee Tenpenny, and items of personal value from my former teammates."

Three days later, Smith was told that he was no longer allowed inside Alabama's team facility even though he still hadn't asked for anything more than permission to talk to other schools.

He got a text from a member of the Tide football staff later in the week that read, "Bro I can't have u at facility. Not for workout, lunch, anything. All in or out policy. Sorry Bro."

So, for two weeks, Smith had to workout at the student recreation center and had to pay for food that he previously didn't need to buy because he was taken care of inside the Tide's team headquarters.

Smith was eventually allowed back in the team building.

"They contacted him and said, 'I'm sorry. This shouldn't have happened to you,'" Smith's mother said.

This is how Saban explained his policy regarding transferring players having access to Alabama's team facility.

"Our policy here is that a player can continue to work out here, but he doesn't really work out as a part of our team if he's choosing to leave our team, and that's pretty much the way we've handled it," Saban said. "We've never had an issue with it that I can recall. That's how we'll continue to do it. (Strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran) even helps them work out.

"We don't take an adversarial position. There's never been a player that has left this program that I haven't tried to talk into staying. Not one. Because I really do think it's in the best interest sometimes of the player to overcome the adversity that he's faced with, and I understand there's a lot of pressure on these guys sometimes externally and they get a little fearful of their future and that creates a lot of anxiety, and sometimes they think that changing their environment is going to help that. In most cases, I don't know if it does. But I understand that."

***

During the conversation with Saban when Smith asked for permission to talk to other schools, Saban asked Smith which schools he was interested in.

Georgia was one. Saban, according to Smith's letter to the appeals committee, made it clear that Smith wouldn't be allowed to transfer to Georgia or any other SEC school.

But Smith would have had an issue transferring to schools even outside the SEC until recently.

There are five criteria a player must meet to be eligible for the graduate transfer exemption. One is that the player's current school didn't renew the player's scholarship for the upcoming academic year. Smith asked in late June for his to not be renewed. It got renewed anyway.

Smith said he learned that when he went to Alabama's compliance office to get a release to Miami.

In addition, there were several schools that sent "tracer" forms to Alabama that had to be filled out for Smith to be eligible to transfer and play immediately. One of the questions on the form is: Does your school object to this student-athlete being granted a graduate transfer exemption? Until recently, Alabama consistently sent those forms back to schools without responding to that question or by responding "TBD."

That was frustrating for Smith and his family, especially since Saban had said privately and publicly that he would do whatever needed to help Smith transfer to a school outside the SEC.

Alabama has since rescinded the renewal of Smith's scholarship, which required collaboration with the SEC and NCAA, and filled out all of the necessary information on forms sent by schools other than Georgia.

The issue? Smith still wants to go to Georgia, even after losing an appeal last week.

That's why Smith's parents made the drive from Houston to Tuscaloosa to meet with Saban early last week.

***

The meeting, the Smiths said, began with Saban talking for around 10 minutes about how important Smith is to the Tide program, how surprised he was that Smith was thinking about leaving and that he hopes Smith reconsiders and decides to remain a part of the program.

It progressively fell apart from there. In addition to explaining why they feel Maurice should be able to go to Georgia, the Smiths said they also shared how angry they've been with different things during this process, like Maurice being barred from the team facility and some of his belongings being thrown in the trash.

At one point, Maurice cut in when Saban brought up that he was "penciled in as a starter." He said, "But pencils have erasers, Coach."

The end result?

It seems like both sides are genuinely frustrated and disappointed this has reached this point.

After the heated exchange between Saban and Samyra Smith, Maurice and his father were called back to Saban's office.

Saban was calm by that point, Smith's father said.

"He said, 'Maurice, first, I want to tell you I'm sorry for allowing myself to get so caught up in what I do that I didn't see that I lost trust with you,'" Smith's father shared. "He said, 'That was not my objective. I've always felt like I've had a relationship with you. I take responsibility for the fact that I've lost trust with you."

But Maurice and his father said they were then told something that they've both gotten used to hearing from Saban throughout this process, that he isn't going to release Maurice to Georgia.