ESPN’s College GameDay had a fantastic season by all accounts – record ratings, big guest stars, dominating the competition. But it turns out that one of its stars didn’t appreciate arguably their most viral moment when Shane Gillis got one over on legendary coach Nick Saban.
College GameDay was on site in South Bend for the first ever on-campus game in the College Football Playoff between Notre Dame and Indiana. Gillis had a cameo as the guest picker, which was a big get for the show as he’s one of the most popular comedians on the scene.
One of the great moments of Gillis’ appearance was when he went right after former Alabama coach Nick Saban. First he joked that the playing field was leveled in college football thanks to NIL and everyone could pay for players and not just Saban and the SEC.
Then when on set with Saban, Pat McAfee poked the bear between the two and Gillis took it a step further by calling Saban “Alabama Jones” for his headwear choice.
“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
“… That was how we cheated. We developed players.” – Nick Saban https://t.co/o4pwKoByhL pic.twitter.com/GXwb9EMhMV
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 21, 2024
At the time, it didn’t look like Saban was really enjoying the banter with the rest of the GameDay set enjoying Gillis’ appearance. And afterwards in appearing on McAfee’s show, the closest Saban could get to playing along with it was tersely saying, “I guess you’ve gotta live with it.”
But now we know the rest of the story from Shane Gillis himself. And it turns out Coach Saban definitely wasn’t in on the joke.
On his show Matt & Shane’s Secret Podcast, Gillis shared the backstory to his encounter with Saban, and how Kirk Herbstreit and Pat McAfee helped escalate the situation.
View this post on Instagram
“After I said that, we had to go into the stadium to sit at the desk. He wasn’t with us when I said it the first time. So then I got in there and right before we go on, he looks at me and says, ‘I heard what you said.’ And I was like, ‘holy s—!’ And then Herbstreit and McAfee were like, ‘he’s just breaking balls dude, he loves messing with guys, he’s literally just f—ing with you,” Gillis said. “I was like, ‘all right, I’ll f— with him back. I would have never done that if I thought he was serious.”
After Herbstreit and McAfee then encouraged Gillis to go talk to Saban after the show was off the air, he found out how the famed Alabama coach really felt.
“I went up to him after and he was like, ‘You think the SEC dominated because we cheated? That’s bull—!’ He spazzed on me,” Gillis said. “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. And yea, I felt really bad about that.”
So now you know the rest of the story. The fact that Shane Gillis joked in an angry Nick Saban’s face about Alabama and the SEC cheating and lived to tell the tale should only increase his legend. The only thing we can ask for now is to make sure College GameDay has Gillis again on next year so we can see Round 2.
