Nick Saban has jokes now during his post-coaching career of being the straight man to Pat McAfee's clown on ESPN College GameDay.
His most recent diatribe on ESPN airwaves was about how he was treated by a gas station cashier in Alabama after his first Crimson Tide team lost to Auburn in the Iron Bowl.
Evidently, despite wearing a 2003 LSU championship ring, this man in the unnamed gas station wasn't sold on Saban getting a championship ring at UAT.
"I don't have any gas, I stop at the service station to fill up, and I used to wear my LSU national championship ring. I go in to pay the guy, and he says, 'Hey, what is that?' And I said, 'It's a national championship ring. We're going to do the same thing here at Alabama.' And he looked at me and said, 'Not as long as Nick Saban is the coach here,'" Saban recalled.
The Tigers controlled the Iron Bowl from whistle to whistle, never allowing Alabama to hold a lead during the 17-7 Auburn win. Tommy Tuberville's legendary defense gave up just one touchdown the entire game.
The Tide was light-years away from what it'd become under Saban. Plenty of Auburn fans would probably like to go back to that time right about now, though maybe not if things ended up changing as they did in Tuscaloosa from 2007 to 2024.
Nick Saban had a much different reputation in Alabama back in 2007
Saban was the laughingstock of the state in 2007, before his legendary run of Dodge Charger-fueled championships kicked off.
On one particularly egregious occasion, Saban made unreasonable historical comparisons to horrific events in American history while explaining the Crimson Tide's future turnaround.
"Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event. It may be 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, and that was a catastrophic event," Saban said at the time.
It's good that he was kept in check for saying dumb things and for not leading his team to victory 19 years ago. Saban cleaned up his act, though not enough to be uninvolved with some of the most hated men on television and in our government.
We'll see if Auburn football can clean up its act and make those doubting the Tigers now look foolish in the future.
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