Nick Saban Takes Shot At Vanderbilt Home Game Atmosphere

Former Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban is not impressed with the home atmosphere at Vanderbilt Commodres games. Or rather, the lack thereof.

Saban appeared on The Pat McAfee Show on Friday afternoon, and spoke about the difficulties of playing on the road in difficult SEC environments. And then singled out Vanderbilt for being the exact opposite.

"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. "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.

"But the only place you’re going to play in the SEC that’s not hard to play, Vanderbilt. 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."

Ouch.

NASHVILLE - First Bank Stadium, home of the Vanderbilt Commodores football team, the least threatening away SEC environment, according to Nick Saban. (Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)

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Crowds at First Bank Stadium are actually near the building's capacity for most Commodores home games. But the number of home fans can often pale in comparison to road fans.

Nashville is an obvious destination for visitors, given the number of hotel rooms and other activities in the city. It's also easily accessible from many other parts of the South, and home to transplants from all over the SEC who've graduated from rival schools.

Of course, Vanderbilt's lack of success in football plays a role in that too. It's hard to blame local alumni for not wanting to see their school serve as the SEC's punching bag. Saban's last game coaching Alabama on the road against Vanderbilt was a 55-3 beatdown in 2022. No wonder he doesn't think their environment is much to write home about.