Nick Saban’s talking about RAT POISON. He has no chill, but he has a point.

Alabama is usually the best team in the country, because it has the best coach in the country and signs the best recruits in the country every year. The Tide are a dynasty, and they’re probably going to play in their fourth straight Playoff this December.

Part of Nick Saban’s shtick is that he rarely betrays a hint of satisfaction with the performance of his juggernaut team or its juggernaut players, or with how Bama’s massive media hoard is covering those players. Definitely not with both at once.

I get that. Saban’s job is hard, and one of the performative elements of being the best at something is trying not to let the people around you feel complacent. Keeping everyone from getting too high or too low is Leadership 101.

A partial transcript:

I’m trying to get our players to listen to me, instead of listening to you guys. You know, all that stuff you write about how good we are? And all that stuff they hear on ESPN? It’s like poison. You know what I mean? It’s like poison. It’s like taking poison. Like rat poison. All right, so I’m asking them, ‘Are you gonna listen to me, or are you gonna listen to these guys about how good you are?

Saban did not mean this exactly how you might think. He’d gotten a question about Alabama’s offense going three-and-out in three of its first four series against Texas A&M on Saturday, in a game the Tide would go on to win, 27-19. Going three-and-out a couple of times to start a game is fairly normal stuff, if not the standard at Alabama.

“Just like your question right now,” Saban tells the reporter. “We get stopped three out of four times, like that’s a bad thing. We’re not gonna beat everybody 66-3.”

That’s how badly the Tide beat Ole Miss a week ago. They’ve also had 41-10 and 59-0 victories mixed in among their 6-0 start.

They were businesslike and never close to losing, but they were a few notches below the voracious death machine they usually are. They allowed 44 percent of the point total teams had scored on them all year! Their running backs and Jalen Hurts only ran for 232 yards, which is certainly not their standard 315!

The Tide, for one night, looked only like a very good college football team. They did not look like the New England Patriots playing against Texas State.

During last year’s Playoff, Bama bulletin-boarded fake quotes attributed to “National Media” that were designed to fire up Alabama players. “Washington will BEAT ALABAMA because ALABAMA is overconfident,” one said. Most national media members weren’t actually saying that, but Saban or one of his deputies decided Alabama players needed a little motivational nudge. The media was underrating Bama in this story.

Saban jabs at the media often. In this case, he’s arguing that Alabama’s being overrated, which he does more commonly. But he’s not doing that in some kind of “aww shucks, we’re not really that good” way. He’s trying to keep his players from feeling down about only beating a good team by a touchdown, which is an acceptable results at most places. Alabama faces massive expectations. It seems obvious that the Tide are at least making the national title game, but Saban could use for his players not to buy into too much of what anyone else says about them. That’s understandable.

You’re 6-0! You’re ranked No. 1! Don’t be worried about rat toxins.