Cry me a river Nick Saban and quit whining about noon kickoffs

Alabama football head coach Nick Saban is not a fan of noon kickoffs and sounded like an entitled, spoiled brat when he didn’t get his way.

Country music star Eric Church once sang, “I love sleeping in on Saturdays and I love college football games,” What Church didn’t love the most was college football games that kick off at noon. And that’s been the theme of this week in college football with Nick Saban and Gus Malzahn emphatically chiming up about the pros and the cons of early kicks.

One of my favorite annual traditions about college football that makes me think I’m living some awful sequel to The Butterfly Effect is coaches griping about game times. I’d understand it more if it was the fans complaining since they are traveling all over the place and need to account for lodging and all of that. Major college football teams don’t have to worry about that. They have people worry about that for them. That’s what George Costanza did for the Yankees when he was the assistant to the traveling secretary.

But when Saban comes out and stands behind the dais and his untouched bottle of Coke and laments the horrors of playing their game vs. Southern Miss at 12 p.m. ET, it comes off like an old man yelling at a cloud.

“We are disappointed that our game against Southern Miss has been selected as a daytime kickoff at home,” Saban said in a statement released by the university, via AL.com. “We realize we’ve played more non-conference day games at home in September than any other SEC team since 2014. There have been a number of conversations with our conference office, and they also recognize the challenges these kick times present for our student-athletes and fans.”

But that’s all to say, I understand Saban’s disdain with getting up early because it disrupts the process. He’s outspoken about it because he knows the students are going to half in the bag from the parties the night before and haven’t had the time to rally up and make it to Bryant-Denny. When you have a less-than-enthused crowd who has a sense of entitlement because of the status of their program’s success, that influences the game-day atmosphere which Saban has been vocal about in the past as well. He’s challenged the fans to stick around for the fourth quarter.

Do you think they’re going to stick around in the unseasonably warm mid-September heat wave that hit the country? The sun is going to be basking down on them like Kramer when he was sun-bathing at the top of his building and had to be basted to keep his skin from drying out.

“I think it enhances the value of our program if our stadium is full and people stay for 60 minutes in the game, aight,” Saban said. “So, from my standpoint, I always want to see the stadium full and I want to see people stay for 60 minutes in the game. We expect our players to compete for 60 minutes in the game. I’m not satisfied with the way some of our players competed in the fourth quarter, the second-team guys and all that. I mean, I’d like to see them get supported just like some of the people that are fun to watch, aight.

“So, I would love for the students there for the whole game, and I know we’ve tried to enhance with some of the things that we’re doing to try to get them to do that. But that’s a choice and decision they’ve got to make. But all these things affect the program, aight, because people come and we have recruits and here, and they want to see a full house and all that.”

At the same time, this will mark only the eighth such noon kickoff for Saban since the launch of the SEC Network. In other words, cry me a river as long as the Nile.

Saban is their sun, Alabama football is their earth. Don’t it make you sad to think you’d have to get up before noon to go to a game?

The posturing by the greatest college football coach of all time doesn’t make this any less petty. This is a case of college football elitism at its finest. Alabama has grown accustomed to playing at the marquee 3:30 ET slot on CBS or the primetime slot on ABC/ESPN. They deserve it. They along with Clemson are the two biggest things in college football at the moment.

Give me a break.

The great start time debate went to another level when Auburn coach Gus Malzahn almost dislocated his shoulder throwing a pile of shade at Saban, who has made a habit of owning Malzahn and Auburn in his career.

“Our guys are excited to be back home for our second home game, playing a very solid Kent State team, 6 p.m. kick,” Malzahn told reporters. “Personally, I wish it was at noon. We’d have more time to prepare for our next opponent.”

You know how many noon starts Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma have had over the years? More than Saban has championship rings, so that’s a lot.

And let’s be real here for a second. If Saban wanted to avoid ever playing a noon start to placate to the TV networks, umm, maybe don’t schedule Cupcake State. Alabama’s non-conference schedule is as laughable as season 2 of The Office.

Arkansas State, UL-Lafayette, Fresno State, Colorado State, Western Kentucky, Kent State, Middle Tennessee, UL-Monroe, Florida Atlantic and Southern Miss aren’t exactly the powerhouses the networks want to put on in the juicy time slots.

No one wants to see the Crimson Tide up 42-3 at halftime and then tune out for the entirety of the second half. Before you chime in and say, “Alabama is too good and no one wants to play them because they’re scared.”

They don’t even need to look outside their own state to find teams willing and ready to play them and in their place!

At some point, we all learn and realize the world does not revolve around us and what we want. Some of us realize it before we have our Kindergarten graduation. Some of us realize it later in adulthood. Some never do and cry about it like a kid who didn’t get the toy he wanted for Christmas.