Anything that involves Nick Saban becomes a brand, even if it’s a petty comedy clip. The former Alabama legendary headset is such a standard on his quintessential legacy that fans can’t get enough of it. After the old man left the building as a coach last year, he started channeling his football instinct through broadcasting with ESPN. The strict nit-picky coach who led Alabama to six national championships through his 17 seasons turned to a minute analyst of the College GameDay. The role might get a little lighter and less serious, but Saban, 70, remains the same poker-faced and firmly principled. He still wasn’t afraid to call out the morons, who often blurred the lines between disrespecting and playful teasing quite harshly.

Mess with Saban, and you will be Shane Gillis to the world. Well, the renowned comedian shared salty moments with the Bama icon on the national media just a week back. But guess what is the good part? The scuffle wasn’t as bad as it looked on the surface. Here’s your tea!

Shane Gillis clears the air on his tussle with Nick Saban

Shane Gillis rubbed it wrong during an interaction where the comedian called the legendary Alabama coach a cheater on ESPN’s “College Gameday” last month. Those who know Gillis might have found it a pretty casual dig coming from such a fiery gangster, but those who know Saban could sense the risk underneath. There’s something about Nick Saban that clearly shows the subtitles: don’t cross the line. Gillis avoided the face signs and pulled in a crazy blame.

Gillis clearly said that Alabama cheated on their players by paying while others did not. Pat McAfee and Kirk Herbstreit were quick to counter him, but the bullet had already hit the tank by that time. ”After I said that, we had to go into the stadium to sit at the desk, and I got in there, and he was like, ‘I heard what you said.’ And I was like, ‘holy s–t,’ and then McAfee and Herbstreit were like, ‘He’s just breaking your balls, dude,” Gillis, who was a guest picker of ESPN, revealed on the “Talk of the Town” podcast.

“He loves messing with guys. Like he’s literally just f–king with you,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, alright. I’ll f–k with him back,’” Gillis lived on his words just in the following segment ahead of the Notre Dame vs Indiana CFP game.

“I don’t think the SEC paid players ever. Is this not a fun show? Is this a serious show? Alabama Jones is looking very serious,” Gillis dished another shot during the Dec. 20 broadcast addressing Nick Saban with his iconic Indiana Jones-style hat. Gillis mocked the entire NIL system. He said it allowed every program to pay for players. It was far from a personal attack on Alabama. But the red-hot coach took it to his ego. Saban replied, ”I do believe in integrity and ran a program that way… that is how we cheated, we developed players.”

Saban is clearly so not okay with whatever Gills has said, but he still went a bit soft on him for a different reason.

Nick Saban forgives Shane Gills for his daughter 

Nick Saban came clean on what went wrong during a College GameDay show that made all the talk lately. He made an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” and cleared his stance. Saban wasn’t just in the mood to tear the comedian apart for his unjust allegation in the name of a joke. He is offended; logical but he chose to let it go for his daughter, Kristin Saban’s sake.

The prodigy said he had not spoken to Gills ever since. ”I understand he’s a comedian. Obviously, he was much more intimidated by JJ Watt than he was by me. He was trying to be funny, which, I get it…My daughter loves him. So that kinda soothes the soul a little bit that someone in our family likes the guy,” Nick Saban said.

Sometimes jokes can fall flat, especially when you are trying to pitch them against none other than the greatest of all time, the coach who ran up a catalogue of achievements with a fundamental of hard work, discipline and principle.

We will see if both parties have any future interactions further or bottle up their disputes from here.