Shane Gillis Takes Shot at Nick Saban for Paying Players on College GameDay

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Matt De Lima | Last updated Dec 20, 2024 7:51 PM ET

Leave it to an outsider from the sports world to hold college football to account. Comedian Shane Gillis, perhaps best known for being fired from Saturday Night Live before appearing on the show, was the College GameDay guest picker on Saturday.

A western Pennsylvania native, Gillis is a big Notre Dame fan and was a natural fit to appear on GameDay while ESPN was in South Bend for the College Football Playoff.

Gillis noted that this year "felt different," saying that college football has parity because now everyone can pay their players, "not just the SEC and (former Alabama head) coach Nick Saban."

“Now that everybody can pay their players Notre Dame has a shot. Not just the SEC and Coach Saban.” - Shane Gillis on Gameday pic.twitter.com/vPwu2Khunn
— Karter Baughan (@karterb8) December 21, 2024

Gillis' comment made Kirk Herbstreit laugh, and Pat McAfee stuck his fist out for a pound.

The 37-year-old comedian went to West Point to play football out of high school but exited the school early in his first year. He went on to play football at Elon and graduated from West Chester University.

In September 2019, Gillis was announced as a featured cast member on SNL. On that same day, multiple podcast clips emerged of him using slurs.

He later said, "if you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you're going to find a lot of bad misses. I'm happy to apologize to anyone who's actually offended by anything I've said."

Since then, Gillis released two comedy specials and went on to host SNL in February.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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