Nick Saban didn’t reach for the usual underdog clichés when he weighed in on the Milwaukee Brewers’ stunning sweep of the Dodgers. He went straight to what the team actually is: a problem for everybody else.
On Friday’s episode of “The Pat McAfee Show,” Saban praised Milwaukee after the Brewers knocked off the two-time reigning champions to reach their first World Series in 44 years.
“The Brewers won more games than anybody,” Saban said on Friday's episode of “The Pat McAfee Show.” “I love it and they are great.
They play good defense, they got team speed, they put the ball in play…. They just do a great job, and they hit home runs in this series.
I really didn't think anybody could beat the Dodgers, but they swept them.”
That’s the tension around this Brewers team: people want to box them in as a crafty, small-market surprise, but the reality is a lot bigger than that. Pat Murphy’s club did come in with a bottom-half payroll, and yes, it beat the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers in four games. But this wasn’t just a neat little baseball story about doing more with less.
Milwaukee showed plenty of that classic Brewers identity along the way - bunting, stealing bases, leaning on the bullpen - but the NLCS also revealed something else. When the situation called for it, they punished the Dodgers with power. The Brewers hit seven home runs in the four-game series, and that burst changed the look of the matchup.
Congrats to the Milwaukee Brewers 👏
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) October 16, 2026
"I love this team and they are great..
I didn't think anybody could beat the Dodgers and they swept them" ~ Coach Saban #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/JseHr8QDqx
What makes this group tough to pin down is how complete it looks from top to bottom. The star power isn’t overwhelming, but the buy-in is. Work ethic, skill and leadership run through the roster, and that’s what people around the team refer to as the Milwaukee Way.
Even the names you’d expect to drive the series didn’t carry the whole load. Jackson Chourio and Jacob Misiorowski, arguably Milwaukee’s two most talented players, both struggled overall in the NLCS. It still didn’t matter.
That’s the point with this Brewers team: the excellence isn’t concentrated in a few headline names. It shows up in team baseball, in situational baseball, in the way they’ve handled the 2026 campaign from start to finish. If they keep that standard through the rest of October, Milwaukee will be celebrating its first World Series title ever.
For now, the Brewers have at least won over one of the game’s all-time heavyweights. And in a sport where the richest roster usually gets the last word, that says plenty.
In Other News...
Brewers World Series Return Just Created A Rare Milwaukee Sports Moment
Major League Baseball has already started shaping the 2026 calendar around a Brewers team that has put Milwaukee in an unusual spotlight. With the World Series set to begin at the end of October, the league announced all seven games will start at 8 p.m. Eastern, and Milwaukee would have the first two games at home if the Brewers get there. The Cleveland Guardians or Tampa Bay Rays would host the middle portion depending on how the American League Championship Series plays out.
The ripple effect reached across town, where the Bucks adjusted their home opener to make room for a potential citywide overlap. Their game was moved from 7 p.m. Central to 3 p.m., a rare scheduling move that gives Milwaukee fans a chance to keep one eye on the court and another on a possible October baseball run. It is the kind of crossover moment that only comes around when a team is deep enough into a postseason chase to force everyone else in the city to plan around it. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers World Series Breakthrough Came With A Tribute Milwaukee Fans Felt
Bob Ueckers absence has lingered over Milwaukee all season, and with the Brewers heading to the World Series for the first time since 1982, the timing has given this run a deeper emotional charge. Uecker, who died in January 2025, was so tied to the franchise that every big moment has felt inseparable from his voice, his humor and the decades he spent turning Brewers baseball into something larger than the box score.
Jeff Levering understood the setting when the pennant was clinched, and his tribute during the moment landed the way only a Milwaukee call could. For fans, this is no longer just a chance to celebrate a breakthrough that has been more than four decades in the making. It is also a way to carry Ueckers legacy into October, with the citys most familiar baseball voice still echoing through its biggest stage. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Just Saw Why The Dodgers Face A Huge Skubal Decision
The Dodgers went all-in on Tarik Skubal before the Aug. 3 trade deadline, bringing in the left-hander to firm up a rotation they believed could carry them through October. For much of the stretch run, he looked like the kind of difference-maker they had in mind, and his presence only added to the sense that Los Angeles had done enough to chase another deep postseason run.
Then came the NLCS, where Milwaukee swept the Dodgers and turned the focus from what Skubal brought on the mound to what comes next around him. The uncertainty now is bigger than one October stumble, because the Dodgers still have to figure out how long they can actually keep him in the fold with the landscape around the sport potentially changing in a hurry. [Read more 🡒]