Playing on the road in the SEC is notoriously difficult. But legendary head coach Nick Saban identified one program that is not so difficult to face on the road.
During his appearance on The Pat McAfee Show from Norman, Oklahoma on Friday afternoon, Nick Saban opened up about just how difficult it was to play on the road in the SEC.
“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 according to On3.
“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.”
However, there was one atmosphere that did not seem to impress Saban.
Saban called out Vanderbilt for their gameday atmosphere, saying that Alabama typically had more fans in their stadium than there were Vanderbilt fans.
“But the only place you’re going to play in the SEC that’s not hard to play, Vanderbilt,” Saban said. “When you play at Vanderbilt, you have more fans there than they have, and that’s no disrespect to them, it’s the truth.
“When we played in Nashville, we had more fans, Alabama fans, than what they had Vanderbilt fans.”
Clearly, Vanderbilt needs to step its game up.
[On3]
