Everyone in college football had Wednesday afternoon circled, because it was the next time Nick Saban had media availability following Jalen Hurts’ comments.

Last Saturday, the Alabama QB battle became one of the biggest stories in sports. Hurts vented his frustration with how the coaching staff has handled the position battle and external noise surrounding his speculated transfer. And he didn’t hold back.

“This is a situation that is uncontrollable,” Hurts said Saturday. “Coaches can’t control this situation. They dictate who plays. But as far as variations to it, they don’t control it honestly. This whole spring ever since the game, they kind of wanted to let it play out. They kind of, I guess, didn’t think it was a thing or tried to let it die down like it wasn’t something there because it has always been the elephant in the room.

“No one came up to me the whole spring, coaches included, no one asked me how I felt,” Hurts continued. “No one asked me what was on my mind. No one asked me how I felt about the things that were going on. Nobody asked me what my future held.”

There was plenty of mixed reaction following Hurts’ comments on social media. His mother even chimed in on the criticism her son received after he spoke to the media.

Saban, however, took center stage Wednesday afternoon following the Tide’s practice, and he downplayed Hurts’ comments.

“Every player has a right to express what he feels and what he thinks,” Saban said. “I think he has every right to do that with every coach in the organization that he has relationships with, which we certainly do quite often. Look, this is probably a lot more important to people outside this organization than people inside. This doesn’t have any affect on our team. The rhetoric will not have anything to do with who’s the quarterback. That will obviously be decided on the field. Same parameters than before on who wins the team.

“I don’t really have any more to say about than that. It’s not anything that has affected our team one way or another. ”

Saban was brief, but he certainly downplayed Hurts’ comments.

The Tide have handled it internally, and they are moving on.