Nick Saban warns Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer before South Carolina game

It's safe to say that ESPN analyst and former Alabama coach Nick Saban had his upset antannae up this weekend. Speaking about the No. 4 Tide's road game at South Carolina on College GameDay, Saban had words of caution for his successor, Alabama coach Kalen De Boer. While the Tide seemingly have an easy game after four straight battles with ranked opponents, Saban all but pulled out his Lee Corso "Not so fast, my friend" imitiation.

The Tide travel to a 3-4 South Carolina team that is an 11.5 point home underdog. But the former Alabama coach smells potential trouble in the road matchup.

Saban's thoughts

With Alabama, they've come off the gauntlet of four straight ranked teams. But last year, they struggled coming off games like that, playing teams that were unranked, and lost twice-- Vandy and Oklahoma.... In 2010, we had won 19 games in a row, we went to South Carolina when Spurrier was coaching there. Big favorites, and we got the lining kicked out of our ass. If I was coaching in this game, I would be really concerned if I was Alabama.
Nick Saban

Saban's history

As a head coach, Saban was the maestro at keeping his finger on the emotional pulse of his team. He famously had a press conference tirade before a 2015 game against Charleston Southern, in which he appeared to lecture the media for assuming that any game was easy. Famously, Saban brought up a 2011 guarantee game in which Alabama had struggled with Georgia Southern, telling the assembled masses that the GSU team ran through Alabama "like s--t through a tin horn."

Alabama's Issue

But whatever his tactics and terminology, Saban laregly avoided costly upset losses. As he pointed out on GameDay, in 2024, DeBoer was not as fortunate. Alabama lost at Vanderbilt as a 23 point favorite and at Oklahoma as a 14 point favorite. The combination of those two losses, and not so much the loss as a three-point favorite at Tennessee, likely kept the Tide out of the College Football Playoff last season.

South Carolina has struggled offensively, but has a stout defense and QB LaNorris Sellers has the big-game skill set to be troubling. A year ago, Alabama played the Gamecocks at home and escaped 27-25 despite being a 22-point favorite. If Kalen DeBoer wasn't already on high upset alert, his legendary predecessor delivered the message again.