With No. 24 Boise State preparing to take on Oregon State, College GameDay had rolled into Idaho, and Pat McAfee couldn’t resist stirring up some nostalgia. This time, he tried to bring back the ghosts of 2024, pushing Rece Davis to say ‘LANK’ all over again.
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During the broadcast, a fan caught everyone‘s attention by holding up a placard with the word “LANK” written all over it. The moment the camera panned towards the sign, the entire broadcasting room burst into laughter.
Pat McAfee, clearly enjoying the moment, couldn’t resist poking fun and turned to ask, “What does it say again, Rece?” The exchange sent the room into another fit of laughter, with Rece Davis playing along and replying, “Let a Naysayer know.”
What unfolded on the broadcast was not the first time Pat McAfee and Rece Davis had found themselves in this awkwardly hilarious situation. The exchange brought back memories of their 2024 College GameDay moment, when Davis attempted to explain Jalen Milroe’s famous “LANK” mantra, interpreting it as “Let a Naysayer Know.”
The moment escalated from zero to 100 in seconds as McAfee’s reaction suggested that the “N” in LANK stood for something entirely different.
“That is not what I thought. Let a naysayer know? Of course. It got real tight up here,” McAfee said, which triggered Desmond Howard and Joey Galloway to completely lose it laughing on live television while Davis tried to keep a straight face and finish the segment. Galloway is no longer with the show, while Howard remains a part of GameDay.
The origins of the now-famous “LANK” mantra actually trace back to Nick Saban. During a 2024 episode of College GameDay, Saban revealed that the phrase came from a pep talk he delivered to Alabama players during the 2023 season. Following a loss to Texas and a narrow escape against South Florida, Saban challenged the Tide to “let all naysayers know” who they really were.
Interestingly, LANK was more than just a catchy slogan. It was the mantra of then-Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe, with the acronym standing for “Let All Naysayers Know.” The phrase became Alabama’s rallying cry heading into the 2023 season, serving as a response to the growing doubts surrounding the team.
“LANK was something we built in the offseason,” Milroe told the reporters back in September 2023. “We came in as one unit to think of a motto to push our team. There was a lot of doubt throughout the offseason. We came together and made that our motto.”
The ‘LANK’ saga resurfaced this year as well when Rece Davis found himself revisiting the viral moment during College GameDay in Pasadena. With Alabama preparing to take on Indiana in the Rose Bowl CFP quarterfinal, the ESPN host paid a cheeky tribute to the unforgettable exchange.
LANK grew into a phenomenon so deeply rooted in Alabama athletics that the university’s athletic department released a documentary chronicling its rise and how the culture spread across every Alabama sport, far beyond football.
Its legacy even found a permanent home when Nick’s Kids Foundation, the charitable organization Nick and Terry Saban founded, built a LANK House through Habitat for Humanity. The tribute honored the 2023 Alabama football team, which would ultimately go down in history as the final squad Saban coached.