Nick Saban wasn’t backing off his claim that Texas A&M pipes in artificial crowd noise at Kyle Field. If anything, he doubled down Saturday morning.
During College GameDay’s broadcast from College Station ahead of Texas A&M’s playoff game against Miami, Saban revisited the accusation he made Thursday on The Pat McAfee Show.
“No, I think it’s real,” Saban said of the crowd noise. “But, y’all still pipe in noise to make it difficult, I don’t give a sh*t what you say.”
The comment drew a strong reaction from the GameDay crowd, but Saban kept going, offering praise for Kyle Field even as he maintained his accusation.
“Let me just say this: I think this is the hardest place to play in the SEC,” Saban said. “We came here, I think, in ’21, the first game I lost to an assistant coach — Jimbo was the coach here. We get behind 24-3 in the game. We go back and get ahead 38-31, and I look at the scoreboard, and I say, ‘How in the hell did we get here?’ But then we got beat by a field goal, so they came back in the game. But the momentum swings in this place are just unbelievable when you’re trying to coach against this crowd, and the 12th man is real here. 100 percent.”
Saban first made the accusation Thursday during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show.
“I did more complaining to the SEC office — it was more than complaining that I don’t really want to say on this show — about this is the noisiest place. Plus, they pipe in noise,” Saban said. “They pipe in noise. I mean, you can’t hear yourself think when you’re playing out there. And, it is a huge advantage when they play at home, especially for their defense, especially getting off the spot. Makes it really difficult for the offensive line.”
The SEC has never publicly substantiated any complaints about piped-in noise at Kyle Field. Either way, Miami is about to find out firsthand whether Saban’s onto something.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.