Nick Saban uses smoking cigarettes and getting cancer to explain up-tempo offenses

From the very second that the proposed 10-second rule was introduced into the world of college football, the conspiracy theorists immediately pointed to one man: Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban, who has been a proponent for getting the hurry-up no-huddle offenses out of the game.

Whether or not he did in fact have anything to do with it, that we’ll probably never know, but he did use an interesting analogy in describing the irrelevancy of the up-tempo style in an interview with ESPN. He used the process of smoking cigarettes and getting cancer, to be exact.

"“The fastball guys (up-tempo coaches) say there’s no data out there, and I guess you have to use some logic. What’s the logic? If you smoke one cigarette, do you have the same chances of getting cancer if you smoke 20? I guess there’s no study that specifically says that. But logically, we would say, ‘Yeah, there probably is.'”"

Well, of all the arguments that we’ve heard against the style, this is certainly a new, unique one, to say the least.

Still, though, no matter what Saban’s thoughts are, there are currently only 25 coaches at the FBS level that are in favor of the rule, so Saban is going to have to deal with the second-hand smoke it seems.