Greg McElroy has not been surprised by Nick Saban’s first season on ESPN’s College Gameday, and he went in depth on his assessment of his former head coach with Dan Patrick.

It is a bit of a polarizing type of conversation to have.

“I find it so funny, because I was really curious like you, I knew he would be good,” McElroy said. “He has got great acumen and he’s funny and witty and he’s constantly jabbing and so I thought that it would carry over. I just didn’t know how much of himself we would see. I thought he would maybe be a bit guarded. A little tentative early. But that dynamic between him McAfee cracks me up. Whether McAfee’s feeding him or he’s making him take his tie off, whatever the circumstances are… To see two guys who are kind of opposite ends of the spectrum has been hilarious.”

“It’s just not that surprising!” @GregMcElroy on how well Nick Saban has done in his first season as a CFB analyst pic.twitter.com/fgmzinwiKB

— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) November 7, 2024

McElroy was not surprised by the way Saban has done in his first year as an analyst. That has everything to do with Saban not fully going on about Alabama and his relationship with the program, as well as the perception surrounding the Crimson Tide.

Instead, Saban has flashed with his ability to dissect the game and gel with his co-hosts on the GameDay set. As McElroy says, it’s not that surprising to understand now that Saban is away from the press conferences as a head coach.

This weekend, Saban and the crew will be in Baton Rouge ahead of a major SEC showdown that the former head coach knows all about. Alabama and LSU are set to kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET in Tiger Stadium.

Crissy Froyd

Crissy covers SEC football news for Saturday Down South.