Nick Saban vs Mercer. Alabama head coach Nick Saban against Mercer.

While Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban often comes across as an extremely serious and humorless figure, there’s a growing body of evidence supporting that he isn’t like that with his players. One particular case in point comes from the stories about Saban repeatedly telling players variations of the internet-popular “Deez nuts” jokes. That started in 2019, with former Alabama RB Josh Jacobs and then-current Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa both telling Dan Patrick about the practice:

The reason this is back in the news cycle is from Alabama safety Jordan Battle’s media availability Tuesday, where he delivered some particular examples of Saban’s “Deez nuts” jokes:

https://twitter.com/ByCasagrande/status/1437851387753345025

As Casagrande wrote at AL.com, he had been previously asking other players about Saban’s sayings, so he posed that question to Battle. Battle took it in a different direction than Casagrande’s previous interviewees:

I’d been asking some of the older players if they had any favorite Saban sayings after sixth-year senior Chris Owens rattled off a few word for word after the game Saturday.

Perhaps Battle heard a few as a junior who plays in the secondary that Saban helps coach more than any other position. Owens was rattling off a few of the folksy, old-time motivational quotes he’s heard a million times from Saban.

Battle was thinking more like Jacobs.

“Not that I can think of right now because he has so many,” Battle began as he thought about it, “but there are a few I like.”

Yeah?

“He’s always talking about ‘touch deez’ or ‘suck on deez.’ All that.”

If anything, this just shows that we need to get Saban in some more PG-13 to R-rated commercials.

[AL.com; photo from Gary Cosby Jr./The Tuscaloosa News, via USA Today Sports]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.