Mario Cristobal was supposed to be talking about Miami. Then Nick Saban came up, and the conversation took a sharp turn. During a recent sit-down with ESPN College GameDay figure Rece Davis, he was asked if the Alabama legend owed him anything. Maybe a car, the analyst joked. The Miami head coach didn’t hesitate.
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“Look, that guy owes me a lot,” Mario Cristobal said via ESPN College Football. “I won’t get into it because he moves the goalpost all the time.”
Mario Cristobal then took a shot at Nick Saban’s television appearance, joking that he had his eyebrows trimmed, hair dyed, or makeup done. Then he had another message for his former boss.
“Make sure you tell him our practices are a lot tougher and a lot more challenging than his practices,” he said.
That sounds like a challenge, especially coming from a coach who spent four years working for Nick Saban. Mario Cristobal joined his Alabama staff in 2013 and stayed through the 2016 season. He coached the offensive line, served as assistant head coach and worked as the Tide’s recruiting coordinator. His 2015 offensive line won the Joe Moore Award, with future NFL first-round pick Ryan Kelly anchoring the group. So when he talks about Saban, there is plenty of history behind the jokes. But he refuses to flow with the tide.
“The way everybody else praises him, you’re going to have to surgically remove people from his butt because they got his nose so far up there,” Cristobal joked. “I’m not going to do that, coach. Sorry, but the other thing too down here, these are Dolphin fans. I saved his life because the Dolphin fans want to kill him.”
The explanation was simple. Nick Saban coached the Miami Dolphins for two seasons before returning to college football. The franchise went 9-7 in 2005 and 6-10 in 2006, leaving him with a 15-17 record during his short NFL run. His departure also became messy because of his repeated denials that he was leaving for Alabama before eventually taking the Tide job.
Mario Cristobal’s “saved his life” line was clearly part of the bit. He was not seriously suggesting Dolphins fans were about to hunt Nick Saban down. In fact, when Rece Davis pushed back on the idea that the GOAT coach was unpopular in Miami, he gave his old coach credit.
“I’m eternally grateful for him,” he said.
That is the part that gives the whole exchange some substance. Mario Cristobal still talks about Nick Saban’s coaching methods like someone who never really stopped studying them. He has said one of his biggest lessons was to “attack human nature,” meaning coaches have to constantly fight complacency and entitlement.
Nick Saban and Mario Cristobal have traded jabs since the former moved into television, with the Miami coach often playing the younger former assistant who refuses to treat his old boss like royalty. He respects, studies, and is grateful to Saban. He is also perfectly happy to roast him on national television. And this latest exchange shows that part is not changing anytime soon.