Nick Saban Was Legitimately Furious With Shane Gillis On College GameDay

When comedian Shane Gillis appeared on "College GameDay" in December, he cracked a joke about Nick Saban cheating at Alabama. Earlier this week, he opened up about his rift with the legendary college football coach.

Gillis joked about NIL allowing every program to pay for players, not just Alabama. That comment didn't sit well with Saban, who said he built his team by properly developing his recruits. In an effort to defuse the situation, Gillis said, "I don't think the SEC paid players ever." He then made things a tad worse by referring to Saban as "Alabama Jones" because of his hat.  

On the latest episode of his "Matt & Shane's Secret Podcast," Gillis talked about his time on "College GameDay." He said Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard encouraged him to mess around with Saban. They said the former coach loves to mess with people. Clearly, Gillis took their advice.  

"After I said that, we had to go into the stadium to sit at the desk. He wasn’t with us when I said it the first time," Gillis said. "So then I got in there and right before we go on, he looks at me and says, ‘I heard what you said.’ And I was like, ‘holy [expletive]!’ And then Herbstreit and McAfee were like, 'He’s just breaking balls dude, he loves messing with guys, he’s literally just [expletive] with you.' I was like, ‘All right, I’ll [expletive] with him back.' I would have never done that if I thought he was serious."

Gillis then went over to Saban to apologize for his remarks. That's when Saban made it clear that he wasn't a fan of the former "Saturday Night Live" member's jokes. 

"I went up to him after and he was like, ‘You think the SEC dominated because we cheated? That’s [expletive]!’ He spazzed on me,” Gillis said. “After he yelled at me I had to help him down and he like looked around to see if anybody else could help him but I had to help him down."