Nick Saban Reacts To Feud With Comedian Shane Gillis: “My Daughter Loves Him So At Least Somebody In Our Family Likes The Guy”

We've finally found something that Nick Saban hates more than losing football games. Who would've thought that a 73-year-old, 7-time National Championship winning football coach wouldn't get along with one of the world's most popular comedians? Shane Gillis joined the panel of analysts for last weekend's College GameDay as a guest picker, and it was one of the more enjoyable shows of the entire year. Mainly because the comedian - who is a Notre Dame fan - accused Nick Saban of cheating and paying players before NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) was introduced to college sports. Just before the College GameDay crew made their picks for the week, Gillis even tried to apologize for insinuating that Alabama paid their players: "I was just joking around. I don't think the SEC paid players... ever. I'm joking. Is this not a fun show? This is a serious show. Alabama Jones is very serious." Gillis called Saban "Alabama Jones because of the hat that we wore with his cold weather outfit. That definitely wasn't Saban's favorite joke, but he really disliked that the comedian was saying he cheated while he was at Alabama. Coach Saban responded with this: "I do believe in integrity. I always tried to run a program that way so players had a better chance to be successful in life. We make more money in the NFL than any other school. 61 players in the league. That was how we cheated. We developed players." https://twitter.com/PatMcAfeeShow/status/1870270961083187479 Love the "I'm so sorry" from Shane Gillis there at the end. The dude was just trying to crack some college football jokes and Nick Saban wasn't having it. At the very least, the former Alabama head coach wasn't going to stand by and let Gillis say he cheated while running the Crimson Tide program. Fast forward to today, when Nick Saban joined The Pat McAfee Show, and Pat asked if he and Gillis had buried the hatchet since their on screen feud. The former head coach said they hadn't talked at all, and implied that the feud was still ongoing. Saban defended himself once again, and even took a shot at Shane Gillis: "I understand that he's a comedian. Obviously he's much more intimidated by J.J. Watt than he was by me - which is understandable. I guess you gotta live with it. But we were trying to create value for players and I think that's why we were able to recruit good players. Whether it was how many degrees they got, how many guys went into the NFL, how many guys had careers that were very productive for them... that's why we got good players. That speaks for itself and that's all there is to it. Shane was trying to be funny, which I get it. And my daughter loves him, so that's kind of soothed the soul a little bit that somebody in our family likes the guy." https://twitter.com/PatMcAfeeShow/status/1872697820769378347 Long story short, you don't mess with Nick Saban. Not even post-football-now-in-media Nick Saban. He might be out of football, but can still take a hit and give an even bigger one right back. Comedian Shane Gillis is starting to understand that right about now...