Nick Saban didn’t have many admirers in Columbus, Ohio from his coaching days at Alabama. Whatever few he had might have evaporated following his latest comments about Ohio State Buckeyes fans.
Saban appeared on The Pat McAfee Show on Friday and initially offered praise for the Buckeyes, calling them “the most talented team” in the College Football Playoff.
“If they play like they played against Tennessee, they’re going to have a really good chance to have a chance to win a championship,” said Saban. “I think this is probably the most talented team if they play to the standard and the level. Offense, defense – they pretty much got it all.”
When the conversation shifted from the football team to its fans, Saban took umbrage with the way they reacted to the team’s recent loss to the hated Michigan Wolverines, saying that they might need to go to therapy to work out their issues.
“You know, we’ve kind of gotten on their, sort of, fans a little bit. But, you know, these Ohio State fans? You know, they’ve got a psychotic obsession with Michigan and they need to go get therapy or something to try to get it fixed,” Saban said. “Because they have a chance to win the national championship and here you are, you know, and nobody’s excited about their opportunity to play because they, you know, lost to Michigan, which was a tough game and they lost the game, probably, by some of the mistakes that they made. Those are correctable things.”
Saban has been getting on OSU fans for a while now. He previously chastised them last week for being so negative about the current team despite the fact that they had the chance to win a national title.
“If Ohio State wants to beat Michigan, they need to be positive about their coach and their players,” he said before last week’s OSU-Tennessee game. “They have an 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 bull****.”
ESPN’s college football pundits have spent a lot of time and energy being negative about the sport, teams, and fans over the last few weeks. They seem to have a very specific view of the correct way to be a college football fan. How Ohio State plays next week will go a long way in determining if Buckeyes fans can live up to ESPN’s lofty ideals.
