Nick Saban says he got a quick reality check in Alabama after his first loss to Auburn.
On ESPN airwaves, Saban told a story about stopping at a gas station after that Iron Bowl defeat and getting a blunt reaction from the cashier while wearing his 2003 LSU national championship ring.
“I don't have any gas, I stop at the service station to fill up, and I used to wear my LSU national championship ring. I go in to pay the guy, and he says, 'Hey, what is that?'
And I said, 'It's a national championship ring. We're going to do the same thing here at Alabama.'
And he looked at me and said, 'Not as long as Nick Saban is the coach here,'" Saban recalled.
That game was all Auburn from start to finish. The Tigers never trailed in the 17-7 win, and Tommy Tuberville's defense held Alabama to one touchdown for the entire afternoon.
At that point, Alabama was still a long way from the machine it would become under Saban. His run in Tuscaloosa from 2007 to 2024 eventually rewrote the program’s standard, but in 2007 the mood around him was very different.
Saban was a target for ridicule in the state that year, and one of his more infamous comments came when he reached for sweeping historical comparisons while talking about Alabama’s future turnaround.
"Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event. It may be 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, and that was a catastrophic event," Saban said at the time.
The story now lands as another reminder of how far Saban’s image shifted over time. And it also leaves Auburn with its own question: whether the Tigers can build enough to make doubters eat their words the way Alabama once did.
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