The rat poison has made its way back to Tuscaloosa.

Sure, Alabama throttled Miami 44-13 in Atlanta on Sept. 4. It’ll be a runaway favorite as it opens its home schedule at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday as it welcomes FCS program Mercer.

Nick Saban, though, wasn’t ready to celebrate, as a rough start to practice on Monday—along with other “external factors”—put the Tide head coach in a poor mood, starting his Wednesday press conference by alluding to his now infamous “rat poison” rant made in 2017 following an Alabama win over Texas A&M. The Tide beat Arkansas 41-9 the next game en route to a national championship.

Then he called out his team only outscoring Miami 17-10 in the 2nd half after opening up a 27-0 lead, stating that a lack of intensity was the cause.

That was only the beginning, as Saban called out players for potentially being distracted by social media reactions and press articles.

“Then it was hot yesterday, so we’ve got every external factor in the world that is affecting our ability to maintain intensity and play the way we need to play and practice the way we need to practice to improve,” he continued. “We’ve got the scoreboard (affecting) us, who we’re playing affects us, the heat affects us, the media and what you guys write affects us.

“So, to me, we’ve got to prove that we can play and maintain intensity for 60 minutes in a game, execute, play hard, finish games, finish plays, do things the way we’re supposed to it.”

Never change, Nick Saban.