No, Nick Saban isn’t casting shade when he says everywhere except Vanderbilt in the SEC is tough to play

It’s no secret that playing on the road is a challenge for college football teams, and that’s even more true with respect to schools that boast high attendances in their stadiums.

On Thursday during Alabama head coach Nick Saban’s weekly radio show, he talked about playing in SEC environments. He stated that playing everywhere in the SEC is tough...”except maybe Vanderbilt.”

The full response is in this video at the 42-minute mark. What prompted Saban to say this was a question about playing on the road against Mississippi State last week, whose crowd is known for ringing cowbells:

“You know, I’d like for somebody to tell me where we play in this conference that’s not a tough place to play,” Saban said. “It’s tough to play at LSU — I haven’t been anywhere. Maybe Vanderbilt, no disrespect to Vanderbilt; they don’t have a big stadium, and most of the time, we have more fans than they have, and that’s a tribute to our fans and the people we have in that area. But every place else we play is a difficult place to play, as well.”

OK, you can’t really blame Saban for being honest here, and as someone who went to a Vanderbilt game back in 2014, the stadium is quite tiny, and the crowd noise from Vandy fans is minimal. During this year’s Alabama-Vandy game as Saban mentioned, the stadium was almost entirely made up of Bama fans:

Vanderbilt Stadium has a capacity of 39,790, which is the smallest in the SEC.