In his first season as an analyst on ESPN’s ‘College GameDay,’ Nick Saban showed more of a personality and sense of humor than he did for much of his 17 years as Alabama’s football coach, offering the sorts of smiles and jokes he rarely, if ever, displayed on the Crimson Tide sideline or behind the dais for news conferences.
As Shane Gillis learned, though, there are some things that aren’t a laughing matter to the college football legend.
The popular comedian drew widespread attention during his stint as the celebrity guest-picker on ‘GameDay’ ahead of Notre Dame’s 27-17 victory against Indiana in the first round of the College Football Playoff on Dec. 20.
That appearance was highlighted by an uncomfortably funny exchange between Gillis and Saban. Earlier in the show, and while Saban was away, Gillis, a Notre Dame fan, said that the Fighting Irish have a chance now in a sport in which players can legally be paid by everyone, adding that it’s ‘not just the SEC and not Coach Saban’ doing so.
When the two were later together behind the desk for the show’s game picks segment, panelist Pat McAfee stirred the metaphorical pot, telling Saban that Gillis accused him of cheating earlier in the program. Gillis didn’t back down from his earlier statement and took it a step further by referring to Saban as ‘Alabama Jones’ for the Indiana Jones-style hat he was wearing that night.
Saban didn’t appear particularly entertained by the back-and-forth, at least not as much as the rest of the ‘GameDay’ set, and as it turns out, he wasn’t.
On the latest episode of Gillis’ podcast, ‘Matt & Shane’s Secret Podcast,’ Gillis offered some additional, behind-the-scenes details from that night and revealed that Saban was very much not in on the joke.
Before they went on the air for the segment at the ‘GameDay’ table, Gillis said Saban informed him that he’d heard what the comedian had said earlier in the show. McAfee and fellow ‘GameDay’ mainstay Kirk Herbstreit assured him that Saban was simply messing with him, prompting Gillis to want to lean even further into it once the show went live again.
‘I would have never done that if I thought he was serious,’ Gillis said.
Saban debuted as a panelist on ‘GameDay’ last August, at the start of the 2024 season. He took the job after retiring as Alabama’s coach in January 2024 following a decorated run in which he led the Crimson Tide to a 206-29 record, nine SEC championships and six national titles. He had previously won a national championship at LSU.
Following their viral moment, Gillis was encouraged by McAfee and Herbstreit to talk things out with Saban after the show, but when Gillis did that, he learned just how truly angry the seven-time national champion was.
‘I went up to him after and he was like, ‘You think the SEC dominated because we cheated? That’s bull—!” Gillis said. ‘He spazzed on me.’
After that, the 73-year-old Saban was looking to get off the raised platform that the GameDay table was on inside Notre Dame Stadium, with only Gillis around to offer him assistance.
‘After he yelled at me I had to help him down and he, like, looked around to see if anybody else could help him, but I had to help him down,’ Gillis said. ‘I felt really bad about that.’
Thankfully for Gillis, Alabama Jones doesn’t carry around a whip.
