Nick Saban says punching an opponent ‘should affect’ Raekwon Davis’ playing time

In the fourth quarter of Alabama’s most recent blowout, Crimson Tide defensive lineman Raekwon Davis rained down a few body blows of his own.

Davis apologized, and the Missouri player he went after, offensive lineman Kevin Pendleton, accepted.

Nick Saban sent a not-so-subtle message about how he’ll handle this moving forward.

“I visited with [SEC] Commissioner [Greg] Sankey about Raekwon’s actions,” Saban said Monday. “We will handle that internally. We will have him do some things. I think it should affect his playing time in the future.”

Saban’s big on using discipline to change behavior, and has routinely said as much. Saban’s comments make it sound like the conference office won’t be disciplining Davis directly, but left it up to Bama.

Bama’s been punchy recently. In the national title game, former Alabama player Mekhi Brown took a swipe at a Georgia player and one of his own coaches on the sideline.

Brown returned to the title game, but I use the word former to describe him because he would later transfer via an exit strategy that was actually already in place before the 2017 regular season even ended.

As far as Davis is concerned, this is another subplot in an already wild college his career. Davis got shot in the leg before the 2017 season, but rebounded to be a contributor to that title-winning Tide defense, as well as an All-SEC talent. So far, only four Bama players have more solo tackles than him seven games into the 2018 season.