Nick Saban makes a game prediction between Tennessee and Ohio State in the College Football Playoff.
ESPN “College GameDay” broadcast live from Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday.
No. 8 seed Ohio State (10-2, 7-2 Big Ten) will host No. 9 seed Tennessee (10-2, 6-2 SEC) on Saturday in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
Kickoff between the Vols and Buckeyes is scheduled for 8 p.m. EST at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio (ABC).
Former coach Nick Saban is in his first season on “College GameDay.” He picked the winner of the Tennessee-Ohio State first-round game.
Saban picked Ohio State to defeat Tennessee.
Tennessee leads the all-time series versus the Buckeyes, 1-0. The only meeting took place on Jan. 1, 1996 in the Citrus Bowl. Tennessee defeated Ohio State, 20-14, in Orlando, Florida.
Nick Saban sternly explained that Alabama “cheated” by developing its players.
Thanks to the advent of name, image, and likeness, college athletes are now permitted to make money under NCAA rules. But even when that wasn’t the case, players getting paid was a fact of life.
While quite a few programs were caught doing exactly that, many more did so discreetly based on extensive reporting into the “bagman” phenomenon. But none of that was happening at Alabama. At least, not according to coach Nick Saban.
During College GameDay ahead of the first-round College Football Playoff matchup between Indiana and Notre Dame in South Bend, Saban did not seem to appreciate comedian and guest picker Shane Gillis jokingly accusing him of “cheating.”
"You called him a cheater earlier." – Pat McAfee
"I was just joking around… Is this not a fun show? Is this a serious show? Alabama Jones is very serious." – Shane Gillis
“I’m joking,” Gillis said when Pat McAfee referenced his cheating comments. “Is this not a fun show? Is this a serious show? Alabama Jones is very serious. Get the whip, Indy.”
Saban clarified that he believes in integrity and that Alabama cheated by developing players.
“I do believe in integrity,” Saban said. “I always tried to run the program that way, so players had a better chance to be successful in life. We made more money in the NFL than any other school, 61 players in the league. That was how we cheated, we developed players.”
Gillis responded with a laughing apology, but the seven-time national champion may not be the comedian’s biggest fan right now.
Everyone had plenty of “Alabama Jones” jokes for Nick Saban’s hat.
Since retiring from coaching college football, Nick Saban has been a delightful addition to ESPN’s College GameDay, and he’s showing off a side of his personality most people rarely got to see before.
For the first round of the College Football Playoff, GameDay is in two places: South Bend on Friday for the Indiana-Notre Dame game and then Columbus on Saturday ahead of the Tennessee-Ohio State game.
It was freezing, literally, at Notre Dame on Friday, so it’s no surprise that the GameDay crew was bundled up, which included Saban wearing an Indiana Jones-esque hat.
The GameDay crew and college football fans both at the ESPN set and online loved Saban’s look for the most part, and a few had some pretty solid jokes about what the former Alabama coach looked like, beyond Indiana Jones.
Bill Belichick wants to copy some things that Nick Saban did while at Alabama.
North Carolina Tar Heels football coach Bill Belichick said Friday that he was attempting to copy some things his friend and former assistant coach Nick Saban had done while at Alabama.
Appearing on Friday’s edition of ESPN’s “College GameDay” ahead of the College Football Playoff matchup between No. 10 seed Indiana and No. 7 Notre Dame in South Bend, Belichick joined Saban, Rece Davis, Pat McAfee and others via video call.
The conversation included some mutually flattering words between Saban and Belichick. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the career paths of both men. Saban was Belichick’s defensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns from 1991-94.
“I learned more from you about evaluating players than anybody in my career because you had a great way of defining the criteria for what you were looking for,” Saban told Belichick. “You went out and did it. You’ve always identified it, and I think that’s been a key to your success. I know you’ll do that — even though you’ve got to recruit them, you can’t draft them — in college as well.”
As for how Belichick is trying to copy what Saban did at Alabama, Belichick explained it to McAfee this way:
“I appreciate Coach Saban’s comments about the evaluations that we did in Cleveland. I think I learned a lot more from him than he did from me. He’s a great evaluator. And then I watched him at Alabama put together essentially his scouting and evaluation staff. So now I’m copying a lot of things that I watched him do there and learned from the system he installed there.”
Belichick added:
“We’ll get players ready for the NFL, no matter what position they play. We’ll get them ready for their lives and their careers just by the accountability that comes with the program very much like Nick did at Alabama. We’ll see what kind of success that is, but very much like that model.”
Saban joked that that it had been easy for Belichick to copy his model at Alabama since it was Belichick’s model in the NFL.
Belichick told Saban:
“I remember when you went back to Michigan State and then to Alabama, you and I had conversations about how much you enjoyed developing the young players and having more of an impact on them. Even though I haven’t done it and just saw it when I was at Navy, I can really see where you’re coming from on that. It’s been very exciting, even in the short time that I’ve been here.”
Belichick was introduced as North Carolina’s new coach on Dec. 12. His first game will be against TCU on Aug. 30 next year in Chapel Hill.
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Nick Saban rant alert! The GOAT goes off about the negativity among a certain college football fan base.
Former Alabama football coach Nick Saban has had it with some of the negativity among fan bases in college football.
Following a segment on ESPN’s “College GameDay” on Friday about the pressures facing Ohio State Buckeyes coach Ryan Day after his team’s stunning 13-10 loss to Michigan on Nov. 30, Saban was asked by host Rece Davis to weigh in on Day.
Saban came to Day’s defense and didn’t hold any punches.
“I think every coach has got to define how he wants to do it, and I have a lot of respect for Ryan Day and how he’s tried to do it. You know, for me, I always wanted every player in the organization the reach their full potential. So it wasn’t so much about the outcome as what you had to do to make everybody better. But a big part of that was insulating the players from external factors: criticism, internet.”
Saban was just getting warmed up and painted an unflattering picture of disgruntled fans.
“I used to tell the players all the time: ‘Why do you care about what some guy puts on the internet, who’s a fat guy, in his underwear, living in his mother’s basement?! Why do you care? Why does that mean anything? Why does that effect you in any way, shape or form? We should be focusing just on what we control and what we can do.'”
Saban grew more animated as he continued.
“I would tell the fans the same thing. If Ohio State (fans) wants to beat Michigan, they need to be positive about their coach and their players, ’cause nobody wants to beat them worse than the players and the coaches do. That’s No. 1. No. 2, they have the opportunity to win the national championship! Everybody ought to be supporting the hell out of them so that they have the best opportunity to do it and quit all this negative bulls—!”
That prompted a reaction from fellow GameDay panelist Kirk Herbstreit, a former Ohio State quarterback who agreed with Saban.
“What I love about that (rant) is you were doing fine for about the first 30 seconds, and then something lit a fuse and you put yourself in that environment because you’ve lived there,” Herbstreit told Saban.
Herbstreit said of negative fans: “It’s like, ‘We’re doing a pretty good job here. … How about getting behind us and helping us down the field?'”
A few minutes later, Saban made it clear he wasn’t speaking just to Ohio State fans. He recalled the high expectations he faced from fans while at Alabama, as well:
“I sat in that spot for 17 years because they thought we should win every game we played at Alabama. And we lost some that we shouldn’t have. It happens sometimes. It’s hard to deal with success and it’s hard to deal with failure, but I think when everybody in the organization is positive about what you’re trying to do — I’m talking about coaches, players, fans, everybody that has anything to do with the organization.
“I always said the fans were a part of the team, and they shouldn’t have any greater expectations for the team than they have for themselves. I think people that create a negative atmosphere, regardless of the circumstance, only hurt their chances of being successful.”
Nick Saban will stay busy this weekend as College GameDay heads to not one but two locations.
Former Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban has stayed busy in his first year of retirement.
Saban has been in numerous TV commercials, including some with Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders. He’s also made guest appearances on various media platforms, and he still attends Alabama home games from his suite inside Bryant-Denny Stadium, the college football palace which now bears Saban’s name.
Since joining ESPN’s “College GameDay,” he has traveled from coast to coast and even made a stop in Dublin, Ireland, for this year’s “Week 0” game between Florida State and Georgia Tech.
Where will Saban be this week as the first 12-team College Football Playoff gets underway? GameDay announced that it would set up shop at two first-round CFP locations, starting in South Bend for Friday’s game between No. 10 seed Indiana and No. 7 Notre Dame.
GameDay will begin its Friday broadcast at 2:30 p.m. CT. The Fighting Irish and Hoosiers will kick off at 7 p.m. on ABC and ESPN.
The following day, GameDay heads to Columbus for the SEC/Big Ten showdown between No. 9 Tennessee and No. 8 Ohio State. Kickoff for that game is at 7 p.m. CT Saturday on ABC/ESPN. GameDay will begin broadcasting in its normal 8 a.m. time slot that morning.
As we wrote last week, it’s a unique twist with GameDay visiting two locations in one week, let alone on back-to-back days. But these are unique times in college football, with the rollout of a new playoff format that is more likely than not to expand to include even more teams going forward.
Alabama continues bowl game prep for Michigan
As for the Crimson Tide (9-3), coach Kalen DeBoer and Alabama players are busy preparing for its matchup against the Michigan Wolverines (7-5) in the 2024 ReliaQuest Bowl (formerly the Outback Bowl) at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla.
It’s been a while since Mike Shula was in charge of an SEC offense.
The South Carolina Gamecocks and quarterback LaNorris Sellers will have someone new in charge of play-calling duties next season, and it’s a name Alabama football fans remember well.
On Tuesday, former Crimson Tide quarterback and coach Mike Shula was promoted to offensive coordinator on coach Shane Beamer’s staff. Shula replaces Dowell Loggains, who accepted the coaching job at Appalachian State.
According to various reports, Shula’s contract with South Carolina is for three years at $1.1 million a season. Shula had been an assistant coach in 2024, his first season with the Gamecocks’ program.
Before joining Beamer’s staff in Columbia, Shula had worked as an assistant coach in the NFL with a number of teams. Most notably, he was the Carolina Panthers’ offensive coordinator from 2013-17, including during their run to Super Bowl 50. He also was the offensive coordinator for the New York Giants for two seasons (2018-19).
Shula is best known in college football circles for his tenure as Alabama’s coach beginning in the spring of 2003. He spent four seasons leading the Crimson Tide, winning 10 games and the Cotton Bowl in 2005 before being fired after going 6-6 the following season.
Shula’s firing led to Nick Saban being named Alabama’s coach — and savior — in January 2007.
For a while, Shula was considered one of the most polarizing figures in the history of Alabama football. His detractors pointed to an 0-4 record against Auburn in the Iron Bowl, an offense that had become too predictable and vanilla, and a resistance to change.
Shula’s defenders recognized he was placed in a no-win situation during his tenure in Tuscaloosa. At the time of Shula’s hiring, Alabama was suffering from great embarrassment amid the fallout of the Mike Price scandal, in which the coach was fired for unethical conduct before he coached his first game.
The image of the Alabama football program had taken a severe beating in the public eye. Dennis Franchione, faced with crippling NCAA sanctions as the result of a major recruiting scandal he’d had nothing to do with, had jilted Alabama for Texas A&M the previous winter. Shula’s first season resulted in just four wins.
But the passing of time, and Alabama’s return to national prominence under Saban, has healed most if not all wounds in regard to Shula.
Alabama will face Shula and the Gamecocks next season on Oct. 25 at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia.
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Saban weighs in on the challenges that Bill Belichick will face at North Carolina.
Former Alabama football coach Nick Saban and Bill Belichick go way back.
The two legendary coaches first met in 1982 when Saban was the defensive backs coach at Navy, where Belichick’s father Steve was an assistant for many years. Saban was Belichick’s defensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns in the early 90s.
The two became close and were featured in a 2019 HBO documentary titled, “Belichick & Saban: The Art of Coaching.” Moreover, Saban welcomed Belichick to Tuscaloosa for the Crimson Tide’s annual Pro Day events for many years when was at the height of his supremacy in the NFL as the New England Patriots head coach.
On Thursday, the 72-year-old Belichick was introduced as the head football coach at North Carolina, an almost surreal move that has taken the college football and sports world by storm.
As for Saban, the college football legend appeared on Friday’s edition of “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN and gave his thoughts on Belichick’s decision to take the North Carolina job.
“I’m happy for Bill. I think he probably wanted a new challenge and this is certainly going to be a great challenge for him. North Carolina is a great academic institution, as well as they’ve got plenty of athletic tradition there in basketball and football. And Bill’s a great coach.”
Saban spoke of the biggest challenges awaiting Belichick in Chapel Hill. To no surprise, recruiting was at the top of the list.
“The difference in college is, how do you bring guys to the team? It’s different drafting guys than having to recruit them because recruiting is like full-time relationship-building 365 days a year in terms of not only evaluating a player that you want, but creating relationships with them to get them. Now, everybody says it’s like the NFL because they’re making money now, but it still takes you to be able to sell them that you’re going to be able to develop them.
“I think Bill will be able to do that, but I think the biggest thing that will be a challenge for him is the time that you have to spend recruiting. Making phone calls, talking to parents and all those types of things to get the players that you need.”
Saban also reiterated his stance on NIL and said that he was in favor of college athletes being paid, even if he disagrees with the current system in place that allows for those payments.
“Having the resources is important to be able to pay them and I’m glad that the players get paid. I’m not crazy about the system that they’re getting paid in and I hope we can get that fixed, but I do think that Bill will do a great job there of getting good players, and he’ll do a great job of developing those players. The biggest adjustment for him will be the time spent recruiting.”
For more coverage of Belichick’s move to North Carolina, visit our friends at Tar Heels Wire.
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There will be hurdles that lead to face-plants and bizarre scenes that live in infamy.
The marriage between the 72-year-old Belichick and a program only 64 years older than him could also work a lot better than we’re used to seeing. This isn’t quite Herm Edwards going to Arizona State or Charlie Weis at Kansas (or Les Miles at Kansas). The dynamics in college sports have completely shifted. North Carolina is trying to change with it and has tapped Belichick to modernize the program lest it get left behind in back-to-back eras.
The brutal recent history laid out by USA Today’s Dan Wolken is probably the lens through which this hire starts to make sense:
Just look at their coaching history in the 21 century. John Bunting, a beloved alum with NFL coordinator bona fides, was a disaster. They hired a proven college winner in Butch Davis, who not only failed to push the program past mediocrity, he was fired after a raft of NCAA violations. They tried the up-and-comer with Larry Fedora, who had one pretty good year and then burned out completely. And after that, they brought [Mack] Brown back for a second stint at the school that never yielded a season better than 9-5.
Is it any wonder the Tar Heels would take a decisive — if not divisive — new approach?
Over the last era of NCAA football, North Carolina tried just about every trick a Power 4 school can do to jump-start the program. Fortunately for UNC, the rules of the game changed.
NFL coaches have often failed going back to college in the past because they couldn’t adapt to the NCAA. Now, the sport is in a place where college coaches have to act more like their NFL counterparts.
“We know that college athletics is changing, and those changes require new and innovative thinking,” UNC Carolina director of athletics Bubba Cunningham said in a statement. “Bill Belichick is a football legend, and hiring him to lead our program represents a new approach that will ensure Carolina football can evolve, compete and win — today and in the future.”
If you believe the No. 1 priority for North Carolina is to retool the program to compete in landscape with player contracts, roster management, endorsement opportunities and career growth, you can see how a school would talk itself into the guy who wrote the modern playbook for the pros. You could even convince yourself it doesn’t matter if the team wins in the next year or two as long as its set up for the next 30.
The question at UNC is less about “can Belichick relate to these kids?” as it is “can Belichick install the type of organizational structure that sustained New England for two decades?” Unsurprisingly, the same time Belichick was announced as the head coach of the Tar Heels, longtime NFL pro personnel director Michael Lombardi announced he was joining UNC as general manager. Belichick reportedly has other staffer lined up as well, including his son, Stephen, who is coming off a decent debut season as the defensive coordinator for the Washington Huskies. He’s expected to join North Carolina in some capacity, per ESPN.
"College football is in for a rude awakening."
Even the best programs are due for a revamp if they can't keep up with the strategic evolution of NFL franchises.
Deion Sanders rebuilt a moribund Colorado program into a premier player destination in two years. Surely Belichick — and the Tar Heels’ backers — believe he can do it even better, if not faster, at a name brand school like North Carolina.
That’s why Belichick might think this is a perfect fit. He’s 72 years old, sure, but he’s also got a massive head start on what a pro organization should look like and a blank canvas in UNC giving him five years to bring it to reality.
There are plenty of reasons why this could end in disaster for both North Carolina and Bill Belichick. It certainly doesn’t seem like either side cares. North Carolina is done trying to win playing by last generation’s rules.
The NBA’s Vegas stage is set
(Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images)
And then there were four, Mike Sykes writes.
The NBA Cup semifinalists have been decided. In the Western Conference, we’ve got the Thunder (19-5) vs. the Rockets (17-8). In the East, we’ve got the Bucks (13-11) vs. the Hawks (14-12).
This is a pretty awesome competitive field. It’s exactly what the NBA Cup was always meant to be — an incredible regular season showcase for the NBA’s lesser-known commodities.
The field is chock full of teams with juicy storylines.
The Thunder have elevated themselves from an up-and-coming team to a championship contender behind one of the league’s top stars in Shai Gilgeious-Alexander.
The Rockets are a new, up-and-coming team looking to put themselves in the same position as the Thunder. Houston arguably has the best defense in the NBA behind it.
The Bucks are a team trying to climb the championship ladder again. They have Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is arguably the best player in the league.
The Hawks have Trae Young and, even when he’s not shooting it well, Young is an absolute show on the basketball court.
The league has to be happy with how this event has turned out. All the weird courts and branding aside, the basketball has been electric. The semis start on Saturday.
Can’t wait.
Jimmy Butler’s agent has had enough
Jimmy Butler’s agent, Bernie Lee, has beef. The man eviscerated Shams Charania online for everyone to see after ESPN’s insider after he reported Phoenix was a new preferred trade destination for the Miami Heat star.
Shams this is your opportunity to say my bad “I let chat GPT write my tweets and it went old school Peter Vescey..” (Shams Peter was a writer in the 90’s) be a trend setter.. invent the new I was hacked. Carry on all. Thank you. https://t.co/1KOXza9kUI
He told Shams to tell everyone it’s Chat GPT’s fault. Yikes!
There were two more tweets, but I’m sure you get the point. Lee is mad. Really mad. He’s indicating that whatever Charania is reporting isn’t coming from the Butler camp.
We’ll see where Jimmy ends up. This will be even funnier if it winds up being Phoenix.
Quick hits: Refusing to walk away … Aaron Rodgers cooked himself … and more
Where will Nick Saban and the rest of the College GameDay crew go next? Here’s what you need to know.
The regular season is over for the Power Four college football conferences and the final 12-team CFP field has been set.
Only one regular season FBS matchup is left on the schedule: the annual Army-Navy game, set for Saturday at 3 p.m. ET at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md. Unlike last year, however, ESPN’s “College GameDay” will not be in attendance for Army vs. Navy.
The crew of Nick Saban, Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Desmond Howard and Pat McAfee will be at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Ind., for the first-round playoff matchup between the No. 10 seed Indiana Hoosiers (11-1) and No. 7 seed Notre Dame Fighting Irish (11-1) on Friday, Dec. 20.
The following day, GameDay will head to Columbus for the first-round game between the No. 9 seed Tennessee Volunteers and No. 8 seed Ohio State Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium.
It’s a unique twist with GameDay planning to visit two destinations in back-to-back days. Moreover, the show will not begin broadcasting from South Bend on Dec. 20 until 2:30 p.m. CT. The Hoosiers and Fighting Irish are scheduled to kick off at 7 p.m. that night at Notre Dame Stadium. The game will be televised on ABC and ESPN.
As for the following day, GameDay will begin broadcasting in its usual time slot at 8 a.m. CT from Columbus ahead of that night’s Tennessee-Ohio State game. Kickoff for Vols vs. Buckeyes is at 7 p.m. CT on Dec. 21. The game will be televised on ABC and ESPN.
It’s the first time this season that GameDay will be in South Bend. Their last visit to Notre Dame was on Sept. 23, 2023 when the Irish hosted Ohio State. The Buckeyes won 17-14 on a one-yard touchdown from Chip Trayanum with one second left in regulation.
The visit to Columbus will be the 25th time that Ohio State has hosted GameDay, the most of any college football program. Alabama is second, having hosted 19 times. It will also mark the second time that GameDay has been at Ohio State this season. GameDay was in Columbus on Nov. 23 when Ryan Day’s team hosted Indiana.
We’re ready for an electric first round of the CFP with DOUBLE the GameDay shows 🍿
Kalen DeBoer and the Alabama Crimson Tide (9-3) are spending bowl season in Tampa, Fla. The Tide will face the Michigan Wolverines (7-5) in the 2024 ReliaQuest Bowl (formerly the Outback Bowl) at Raymond James Stadium on Dec. 31.
