The Alabama Crimson Tide’s linebacker depth took a hit Saturday as Nick Saban announced that Chris Allen had knee surgery and is out for the year.

Allen became the Tide’s second outside linebacker to be lost for (potentially) the season, as Terrell Lewis tore his ACL in July. Sure, Alabama has as much or more quality depth than anyone in college football, but losing two linebackers before the start of the season is just brutal.

Following that announcement by Saban, reporters followed up with a question that made Saban deliver the early candidate for quote of the year, “You think whatever happens we just shit out another player, and everything’s going to be perfect.”

On Monday morning, Paul Finebaum joined WJOX 94.5 FM, and he reacted to Saban’s mini-rant, telling Saban not to blame the media.

“As far as what Saban said, I mean I never heard that phrase used quite like that,” Finebaum said. “Then again, Nick Saban has a different lingo than the rest of us. I don’t mean to rain on Saban on this fine August morning, but don’t blame the media for creating his roster. He’s created it by recruiting better than any coach in the history of the game over the last 10, 11 years. I think the expectations are that Alabama has five 5-stars at every position. They usually do. But that’s a creation by Nick Saban and his staff, not by anyone else.”

At SEC Media Days, Saban also appeared to blame the media for creating Alabama’s “quarterback controversy.”

“The No. 1 thing you’d like to talk about is the quarterback controversy you love to create and continue to create, you love to talk about. It’s still to be determined,” Saban said. “You can ask all the questions you want. I’m going to say, ‘We’ll see.’”

As we all know now, Jalen Hurts wasn’t too happy with how Saban handled that “media creation.”