Nick Saban Shades Vanderbilt, Says Program Has Only SEC Stadium 'Not Hard to Play' At

Nick Saban may be retired, but the former Alabama head coach didn't hesitate to throw some shade at a former conference opponent.

During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Friday, Saban said he felt during his time with the Crimson Tide that Vanderbilt was the easiest environment to play in among SEC teams.

"The only place you're going to play in the SEC that's not hard to play, Vanderbilt. When you play at Vanderbilt, you have more fans there than they have, and that's no disrespect to them, it's the truth," Saban said (h/t Steve Samra of On3.com).

Vanderbilt plays at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville. The team announced that it had a sellout for its home opener against Virginia Tech in Week 1 with 28,934 fans in attendance. The Commodores defeated the Hokies 34-27 in overtime and followed that up with a 55-0 win at home against Alcorn State before suffering their first loss last week on the road against Georgia State.

Still, Nashville is a popular tourist destination, and Saban said he felt there were more Alabama supporters than Vanderbilt fans in attendance when the Crimson Tide would visit. He also explained that other SEC schools presented tougher atmospheres.

"We're at LSU and we go right down the field when Tua [Tagovailoa] is playing and we get down on the 20-yard-line, where the student section is, we got four straight false starts," Saban said. "The players are all going, shaking their heads like, 'I can't hear, I can't hear,' so it forces you to go on silent. Huge disadvantage, because the defensive line can watch the ball, the offensive line has to watch the ball, so you have no advantage in cadence, and it's — you're sitting there saying, 'This is tough.' When we played at Tennessee a couple of years ago and got beat up there, that was about as wild as a situation as you're ever going to get in."

Vanderbilt and Alabama will meet on Oct. 5, so perhaps the Commodores will use Saban's jab as motivation to earn their first win against the Crimson Tide since 1984.