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Unless you’re an Auburn fan I think it’s nearly impossible to hate Nick Saban. You can hate what he’s done to College Football over the past decade by essentially creating an NFL-feeder program of 5-star athletes where multiple National Championship appearances are nothing more than stops along the way to the NFL. But you have to respect the man as a coach.
I don’t really know anything about Nick Saban as a person. I’ve just assumed that he’s some sort of charismatic recruiting robot that’s a magnet for talent and has a 185 Football IQ for calling plays and identifying weaknesses in the opposition. I never assumed that he’s funny or actually likable beyond his on-field achievements.
Saban comes off as one of those ‘all business, 24/7/365’ types but that’s apparently not the case according to former Alabama running back Josh Jacobs who spoke with PFT Live about how Nick Saban drops ‘deez nuts’ jokes in practice.
It does sound like Saban has an absolutely zero-tolerance policy for mistakes but that he also knows how to have fun when things are going right:
What people don’t understand about him is he’s actually very funny. He’s definitely a players’ coach. I remember one day at practice I was just catching a lot of balls—and you know he works with the defensive side so he’s always on the offensive players. Whenever we do something good, he just gets mad, gets to cussing out Eddy. And that’s one of the longest referees we’ve ever had there. He’s just funny, man. He gets to slamming the hat on the ground and all of that, it’s just funny. …
I was one of the rare lucky ones. He never really yelled at me. He used to joke with me and say a couple of things, but besides that he never … Like if I was catching a lot of passes that day, he would try to say something like, ‘Hey Josh, you keep catch all these passes, how about you hold deez?’ or something like that. Just something funny for a coach to try and translate and get to know to each player. (via)
I’d pay good money to watch Nick Saban stand on a stage with a microphone and drop ‘BOFA Deez Nuts’ jokes. I’d probably pay more money for that than I would to watch an Alabama Football game.
I have to imagine this isn’t a side of Nick Saban that many people outside of his coaching circle get to see too often. Even the players who might’ve caught a glimpse from time to time are still going to make mistakes at some point and feel his wrath in practice. But it is nice to know that this guy is capable of being funny.