Sports

Nick Saban Completely Discredited Deion Sanders At SEC Media Days, Did Not Cuss Out Reporters

#Football
by Last Updated

Nick Saban SEC Media Days

Southeastern Conference

  • Deion Sanders said earlier this week that Nick Saban does not want to be called by only his first name.
  • He was wrong and Saban made him look silly at SEC Media Days.
  • Click HERE for more college football news!

Jackson State head football coach Deion Sanders walked out of a press conference on Tuesday.

Sanders at SWAC Media Day:

A reporter at SWAC Media Day referred to ‘Coach Prime’ as ‘Deion’ and the NFL Hall of Famer falsely claimed that Alabama coach Nick Saban doesn’t like being referred to as his first name.

“You don’t call [Alabama’s] Nick Saban, ‘Nick.’ Don’t call me Deion,” Sanders told Nick Suss from the Clarion Ledger. “[…] if you call Nick [Saban], Nick, you’ll get cussed out on the spot.”

Sanders requested that he be treated the same as Saban, at which point the reporter said that he also calls Saban by his first name, Nick. When the reporter doubled down and called Sanders ‘Deion’ again, he got up and left.

Saban at SEC Media Days:

Well, sure enough, Sanders was proven wrong a day later. Saban took the podium at SEC Media Days on Wednesday.

The greatest coach in college football history was called ‘Nick’ multiple times and couldn’t have cared less. Believe it or not, he didn’t cuss anyone out either.

In fact, at one point, reporter Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel made a joke about what happened with Sanders. Saban didn’t laugh because he just doesn’t care, and nobody else did either because it wasn’t funny.

Jump ahead to the 23:12 mark to hear the silence:

To go one step further, even though he clearly didn’t care, a reporter asked Saban how he — and other coaches (cough cough, Deion Sanders) — should be addressed. Saban cracked a smile while the room laughed and proceeded to completely debunk Sanders’ statement.

“It’s not really something that’s really that significant to me,” he said.

Near the end of 2020, TV reporter Rick Karle hilariously got upset with another member of the media for calling Coach Saban just ‘Saban.” Perhaps that is what Sanders was wrongly referring to? Either way, it is a tough look for Deion.

If six-time national champion SEC coach Nick Saban doesn’t care, why should zero-time national champion SWAC coach Deion Sanders?