Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban makes many people betting on college football very happy, but he himself must be in the Cloud Nine of Seventh Heaven. Not only is he at the helm of the consensus No.1 college football program in the United States with a 9-0 (6-0 in SEC play) record and odds-on NCAA football betting favorite to win the NCAA football national championship this season, but he was also blissfully unaware not only that it was election day, but he did not even know who won it – which would make him the one person in the world in that category. Lucky guy.
“It was so important to me that I didn’t even know it was happening,” our new favorite head coach ever said on Wednesday evening. “We’re focused on other things here.” Well put, sir. There are so many other and better things to do, including but not limited to betting on college football, watching college football, reading about college football, or watching movies about college football (We Are Marshall, Brian’s Song, Rudy, Knute Rockne All American, hell even The Waterboy). Not that coach Saban has time for any of those things, though. According to ESPN, he wakes up every morning – well, one should hope so – has a Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie and a cup of coffee, and watches about 10 minutes of The Weather Channel.
As can be expected, however, certain individuals – who obviously have never done any betting on college football in their lives – took umbrage at Saban’s use of his freedom of speech. David Wharton wrote in the LA Times that “Saban’s world should include more than college football.” Why? We for one would love to live in a world where college football is not the only thing matters but rather is the only thing that exists – and then just hibernate the rest of the year. Then drjays.com – a website of which existence we were hitherto unaware – actually said that “what… Nick Saban said about Election Day was stupid.” No, website that until five seconds ago we didn’t know existed. What’s stupid is asking a college football head coach anything that is not related to college football in a college football press conference in the middle of the regular season.
Elsewhere, Yahoo Sports called his comments “irresponsible.” Yahoo’s Nick Bromberg wrote that “nothing is too important than your civic duty to vote.” Well, we guess we simply cannot argue with such a high level of coherence and eloquence. Finally, CBS Sports’ Chip Patterson says, “all of these discussions ignored the potential that Saban did vote – while his statement suggests he sat this round out he never said he didn’t vote. So did he vote? How did he vote?” First of all, how he voted – and whether or not he did – is nobody’s business but him. And second, of course there is the very strong possibility that he was perfectly conscious that there was an election going on. Maybe he just didn’t care. And that would only make us respect Nick Saban even more. Also, he rocks a mean straw hat.
