Nick Saban responds to Kirk Herbstreit’s comments regarding his interest in College GameDay
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Nick Saban the next Lee Corso? As crazy as that may sound, it appears you can’t rule out that possibility.
While the Alabama coach is happy where he is leading the football program in Tuscaloosa, there has been some recent speculation what Saban could one day join ESPN’s College GameDay team.
Those comments came from Kirk Herbstreit during a recent appearance on Clay Travis’ ‘Wins & Losses’ podcast. If you haven’t heard that episode of the podcast, you can check it out in its entirety here.
When asked if there was one active coach that would make for the best College GameDay anchor, Herbstreit immediately thought of Saban.
“I think he would be a superstar,” Herbstreit said of Saban. “He’s almost like EF Hutton, he speaks so softly when he is on the desk with us, you know? Because he’ll come on a lot, whether it’s – we do Gameday in Tuscaloosa, he’ll come on with us in the morning; or obviously, if his team in the rare moment they don’t make the Playoff, he’ll be one of our guests analysts that we will have at the championship game. And you know when he’s talking, he’s talking softly and you’re like leaning into it yeah you don’t want to miss anything that he’s saying it’s just, he’s like Yoda, you know he’s got so much to say that you just want to like write everything down and he says. I think the energy of that show would bring out a side of him that would be a lot of fun. Not that he’s ever going to try to one day, you know, try to be a Lee Corso.”
Following those comments, Travis asked Herbstreit if he thinks Saban would do it. Again, the ESPN analyst was eager to suggest Saban has considered the idea of joining the show after his coaching career comes to an end.
“I do, I do, I do,” Herbstreit said. “I think he, you know, just had the hip done and I think still feeling like, especially after the way last year ended, I still think he thinks he’s got so much left in him that I don’t think he thought about it, like, ‘let’s do it.’”
Based on those comments, it’s clear Herbstreit believes Saban will give the show some thought whenever the coach retires from Alabama. During a Thursday appearance on SportsCenter, Saban appeared to confirm that notion.
Here is what Saban offered up when asked about Herbstreit’s comments.
“I’ve done it a couple times, and I actually did enjoy it, I liked it,” Saban said on ESPN, according to 247Sports. “It was still a little bit like being a part of a team. And I think that I really enjoyed the opportunity to be able to express some technical aspects of the game to the fans that may enhance their interest to some degree. And it’s a really good bunch of guys on GameDay that I really, really enjoy being around.”
There you have it. Whenever Coach Saban does stop coaching, not that that will be anytime soon, the Alabama coach will likely have a message from ESPN waiting on his voicemail begging him to join College GameDay.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
