Nick Saban has been a visionary when it comes to coaching elite superstars in his esteemed coaching career in NFL and college football. He is widely known for having strong work ideals, even if it cost him his reputation among some specific players in the big league. The poker-faced head coach never steered away from his values, something that helped his name become a brand over the years. It is always Nick Saban’s intangibles over his high-flying six-championship record in Tuscaloosa. However, when it comes to becoming an analyst, Saban nearly failed to maintain some of his neutral attitude toward teams. Thanks to the current catastrophe over Kirk Herbstreit served as a strong wake-up call to the West Virginia native.

Since Saban has brought his talent to the broadcasting team at this point, he has started to be more vocal about his stances on the players, coaches, and teams for obvious reasons. He recently defended Ryan Day amidst the huge backlash before the college football playoff national championship game. He hates how Day gets judged even after doing everything for a program over 12-14 years in his career. He said the media is a crap, spreading negativity all around.

Capitalizing on his stance, Nick Saban said during the latest episode of The Pivot podcast, ‘It creates interest for fans and everybody but there’s also a side of it where they’re going to judge you for almost everything that you do and that’s the thing that I never wanted to affect the players you know what I mean if you’re getting criticized because you missed a tackle or you didn’t do, you know, something or the quarterback played bad.

Saban had a rowdy image, especially in the NFL. Not everybody can match his ethics and work ideals in the field. But don’t let it confuse you. Saban hates diminishing players publicly in front of the media. ”I never wanted the players to get criticized, and that affected who they were and their performance and that type of thing, so that’s what I meant by that, the blueblood coach continued.

The context hit after the host dragged recent hot air surrounding Kirk Herbstreit’s alleged bias over Ohio State. Herbstreit has a clear tie with OSU and that’s an open secret to all. But the animosity brewed over the opponent’s fans when he refused to perform the routine college game day pick ahead of the final.

Kirk Herbstreit garnered serious backlash over his questionable college game day action

Herbstreit quarterbacked for the Ohio State Buckeyes during the ’90s and still can’t let go of his bias as per the internet pundits. Speaking with the media, after the Buckeyes lifted the trophy in a surreal dogfight at Atlanta, the ESPN juggernaut couldn’t hold back his emotion.

”I’m a little emotional. I’m just fired up for these guys. You know, when I call these games, I’m incredibly objective. I love all of these Ohio State teams, but this team because of what they went through to get to this point, you’re just happy,” said Herbstreit. There was nothing wrong in being mushy about your alma matter, but people have seemingly issues with his ‘incredibly objective’ claim. It contradicted his past actions and gestures.

Social media has been running red hot for a few weeks, as they feel Herbstreit’s commentary has always been a little too inclined to scarlet and gray. The tension was quite justified, especially after the ESPN analyst refrained from making a pregame pick on the College GameDay. Although he tried to portray that refusal as an act of neutrality, fans deemed it quite the opposite. They thought Herbstreit purposefully avoided the practice so as not to push over the Ohio State fanbase.

Well, the allegations are not out of the blue for sure as the analyst himself noted that he had some talk with the players, and coaches and has seen how they have gone through all the roadblocks in the season, quite assuring the notion that he is more than a commentator when it comes to calling Ohio State.

However, the dust will eventually settle, but Nick Saban won’t be the same dupe any way.