Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban doesn’t have to keep himself nearly as buttoned up these days.
He showed us that once again on Friday when, maybe unintentionally, he took an absolutely vicious shot at the Vanderbilt Commodores and the home crowd atmosphere at their stadium in Nashville during an appearance with his new best friend, Pat McAfee.
“The only place you’re going to play in the SEC that’s not hard to play, Vanderbilt,” Saban said during a discussion about the challenge Tennessee has ahead of them this week. “When you play at Vanderbilt, you have more fans there than they have, and that’s no disrespect to them, it’s the truth.”
While Saban really isn’t wrong at all, it does feel like Vanderbilt is a bit of an easy target to pick on, even if Saban didn’t mean it that way.
Incredibly, the last time Alabama lost to Vanderbilt was more than 20 years before Saban’s arrival in Tuscaloosa in 1984. During his tenure, the Tide played Vanderbilt four times, and while the first edition was a respectable 24-10 during his first season in 2007, the other three ended in a combined point differential of 148-3 over three games.
It’s safe to say that Saban is correct, there is not much of a home field advantage at Vanderbilt.
Michael Brauner is a Senior Sports Analyst and Contributing Writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @MBraunerWNSP and hear him every weekday morning from 6 to 9 a.m. on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5, available free online.
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