Nick Saban is known for showing some fire on the sidelines, but the Alabama coach says he doesn’t have a problem with referees. Referees can thank the fact that Saban’s father was an umpire.

“When I was a little kid, I would go with him and people would be throwing stuff at the umpire so I have a great admiration for officials and what they do and how hard their job is because of that,” Saban said, per AL.com. “I always sort of stick up for the officials because I know how hard their job is.”

As the head coach of a team ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25, Saban has been known for his share of sideline outbursts. He can be seen chewing out either an assistant coach, a player or, on occasion, a referee.

But, as he shared Thursday night, there’s one surefire way for a referee to get on Saban’s good side.

“But I think the No. 1 thing is the best crews are the most consistent crews,” Saban said Thursday night. “They are consistent in the way they call holding. They are consistent in the ways they call pass interference. They’re consistent in not making, what I call, marginal calls. A foul has to be a foul. They let players play and they’re very fair minded in how they go about playing the game and they’re very easy to talk to and they’re very relationship-oriented with the players.”

On the other hand, there’s also an easy way to tick Saban off.

“The guys who are a little stand-offish and a little hard to deal with and maybe a little inconsistent and you feel like they’re getting a little emotional in the games, I guess, would be the ones that are the most difficult,” Saban said. “But I have a tremendous amount of respect for the officials in the SEC.”

Saban added that he wishes for more uniformity on pass interference calls, saying that it’s become difficult to coach players because of how differently the rule can be viewed.