There’s a lot of reasons to find Pat McAfee insufferable if you’re a Notre Dame football fan, or really a college football fan of any stripe. But it’s unfortunate that McAfee, who acts like a buffoon on a daily basis because that’s apparently what his fans like about him, has managed to get legendary head coach Nick Saban to engage in buffoonery as well.
Or maybe Saban just has an outlet to act like more of a buffoon because he could never look as bad as McAfee. It’s a bit of a chicken or egg situation at this point.
Whatever is the root cause, both McAfee and Saban are still passive aggressively complaining, a week later, about a joke that Notre Dame football superfan and comedian Shane Gillis made at Saban’s expense on ESPN College GameDay ahead of the Fighting Irish’s first round playoff win against the Indiana Hoosiers.
"I understand that Shane Gillis is a comedian and he was trying to be funny..
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) December 27, 2024
My daughter loves him so at least somebody in our family likes the guy" 😂😂 ~ Coach Saban#PMSLive https://t.co/xqVBj2uhIS pic.twitter.com/c5h9VOKv9c
Notre Dame football fan and comedian Shane Gillis has really gotten under Nick Saban’s skin
Saban appeared on the McAfee show on Friday a week it was clear that Gillis had gotten underneath Saban’s skin.
At the heart of the issue was that the comedian had claimed that Saban had always been paying his players and that NIL was really no different. The segment got so bad and Saban took suck offense that Gillis had to explain he was joking, while calling him Alabama Jones because of the hat he was wearing.
On Friday, it was clear that Sabam wasn’t over it.
“I feel like you thought he was actually taking a shot at your integrity,” McAfee said to start the segment. “So you defended yourself. Have you done any more research on Shane, and have you chatted with him or got a chance to catch up with him since then?”
Saban, deciding to be the living embodiment of “please don’t put it in the paper that I was mad responded, “Not at all. Not at all.”
He then went on to say that he understood that Gillis was a comedian, before taking the time to kinda, sorta explain why he was mad about the joke.
“But, you know, we were trying to create value for players, and I think that's why we were able to recruit good players, whether it was how many degrees they got, how many guys went in the NFL, how many guys had careers that were very productive for them. And that's why we got good players. So that speaks for itself. And that's all there is to it.”
One might think that while rooting for the Notre Dame football team to beat Indiana, Shane Gillis got Saban to protest a bit too much. Here’s hoping the Irish can get under the skin of SEC backers even more on New Year’s Day.