Razorbacks athletic director Jeff Long indirectly called out the Crimson Tide head coach via an Arkansas radio station on Friday.

Earlier this week, Alabama coach Nick Saban expressed displeasure with the College Football Playoff as it relates to the tradition of bowl games.

“I learned what I feared the most would happen. … What I was most fearful of is college football is unique. A lot of young men get a lot of positive self gratification from being able to go to a bowl game and that’s always been a special thing,” Saban said, according to AL.com.

“That by having a playoff we would minimize the interest in other bowl games, which I think is sort of what happened and I hate to see that for college football.”

Saban went as far as to say explicitly that it may be a good idea for college football to consider moving away from a playoff system or dropping the bowl games altogether.

Long, the chairman of the College Football Playoff selection committee, called into “Sports Talk with Bo Mattingly” for an unscheduled interview on Friday, challenging the host to ask him some questions.

Eventually the radio station asked Long about Saban’s comments.

“Well, I think sometimes coaches, particularly those at the highest level, I’m not sure how aware they are of what’s really going on out in the real world,” Long said on the radio show. “They keep adding bowl games. I think the television interest for the games is higher than ever before, and I think that is not only the College Football Playoff, but as we’ve gone down through some of those bowl games.”

Four new bowl games have been approved for next season. According to AL.com, attendance at all bowl games slipped by 4 percent in 2014-15, but TV ratings (and dollars) improved for the pre-New Year’s Day games.

Continuing his answer, Long addressed lagging in-stadium attendance at some of the bowl games without prompting.

“I think as ADs across the country, we are concerned about fans coming to games. We’ve got to continue to get more fan-friendly environments in our stadiums,” Long said.

“That’s important to us because the truth is if fans aren’t in the stands, it’s not nearly as an attractive game on television, either. It’s on all of us to make sure we’re making those games interesting to be in the stands for and be part of that environment and that whole environment for college football.”