Last November, the 16-year anniversary arrived of one of Alabama’s most disastrous football losses in program history, and it came during Nick Saban’s first season.

In the final home game of the 2007 season, the Crimson Tide lost to Louisiana-Monroe 21-14. The Tide would go on to lose the Iron Bowl and finish the regular season at 6-6.

While speaking Thursday at the Irondale Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, Saban shared a story of a memorable conversation with a convenience store worker after getting gas following the game.

https://twitter.com/aldotcomTide/status/1786156954806575192

“It was the most humiliating defeat maybe of my entire coaching career … we played horrible in the game, it was almost a shame how we represented the university and the program, we fumbled the ball six times,” Saban said.

“So everybody is disappointed, fans are disappointed, coaches are disappointed, players are disappointed. But when you’re the coach, you have to go in the locker room after the game and try to inspire your guys when they didn’t perform very well. Then you have to go to the press conference and try to explain to people why you played so poorly, then you have to go to the recruiting room and try to talk to recruits that it’s not really gonna be this way in the future,” he said.

“Then after all that humiliation I get in my car to drive home and I don’t have any gas in the car. So now I’ve gotta stop at a self-serve, put some gas in the car, and I used to wear my LSU national championship ring. So I go to pay the guy and the guy says ‘wow, what’s that ring?’ And I said ‘that’s a national championship ring and we’re gonna do the same thing here at Alabama.’

“And the guy (who did not recognize Saban) looks at me and says ‘We’ll never do it as long as that Nick Saban is the coach.’”

Michael Brauner is a Senior Sports Analyst and Contributing Writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @MBraunerWNSP