Nick Saban clowns Vanderbilt home atmosphere: 'When you play at Vanderbilt, you have more fans there'
Vanderbilt caught a stray from Nick Saban during his appearance on The Pat McAfee Show in Norman, Oklahoma on Friday afternoon.
The former Alabama leader was speaking on the difficulties of playing on the road in the SEC, and how his Crimson Tide teams would handle different atmospheres. Well, it’s evident Saban didn’t think of the Commodores as much of a challenge, as he claimed more Alabama fans would be in Nashville than Vanderbilt supporters.
“We’re at LSU and we go right down the field when Tua [Tagovailoa] is playing and we get down on the 20-yard-line, where the student section is, we got four straight false starts,” Saban said, regarding the difficulties of playing on the road in the SEC. “The players are all going, shaking their heads like, ‘I can’t hear, I can’t hear,’ so it forces you to go on silent. Huge disadvantage, because the defensive line can watch the ball, the offensive line has to watch the ball, so you have no advantage in cadence, and it’s — you’re sitting there saying, ‘This is tough.’ When we played at Tennessee a couple of years ago and got beat up there, that was about as wild as a situation as you’re ever going to get in.
“But the only place you’re going to play in the SEC that’s not hard to play, Vanderbilt. When you play at Vanderbilt, you have more fans there than they have, and that’s no disrespect to them, it’s the truth. When we played in Nashville, we had more fans, Alabama fans, than what they had Vanderbilt fans.”
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While Saban’s Crimson Tide didn’t play in Nashville often, it’s evident the trips to face the Commodores made an impression on the coach. The Alabama fans showed out and were rewarded with gigantic victories, while Vanderbilt fans seemingly stayed on Broadway and watched the games from a bar instead.
If ESPN ever brings College GameDay to Nashville for a Vanderbilt game, perhaps Commodores fans will have to let Nick Saban know about their displeasure, proving they belong mentioned with the best crowds in the SEC. It remains to be seen if that ever comes to fruition, but they’ll have to win some more games for that to be possible.