That roar you hear, Nick, is the coming backlash...

My minions brought me this little piece that mostly went unnoticed over the weekend, with the exception of Ian Rapoport of the Birmingham News, who caught a little diddy blurbed by Saban after the crimson A-Day game this weekend. Talking about how fan support waned after the regular season last year:

"There's very little interest from our fans, our players or anybody else to play in the Sugar Bowl, which to me is a tremendous opportunity," Saban said. "I tried to tell everyone, you're only going to remember one thing about this game and that's the outcome. So there's no interest, there's no passion and everybody is embarrassed because of how we played. Well, it's because you didn't have any passion for it, you didn't have any interest in it, you didn't have any enthusiasm to do it, and that's across the board. And that's not right. We go to a BCS bowl game, everybody ought to be positive and enthusiastic about what we're doing."

Now we've heard Saban cautioning fans before about their expectations, but any statements made have always stopped short of blaming them for lackluster performance on the field. Could the Capstone Pressure Cooker be gettting too big a head of steam, or is Nick hedging himself for a possible letdown this fall? Yours truly made the claim back in February that Tide Fans weren't going to settle for anything less than a SEC and/or National championship this fall, despite their claims to the contrary and that they were all truly level-headed about the direction and speed the program was moving. Yea, right.

But regardless if this is just casual banter from the mouth of the savior, who sometimes drivels on when not on teleprompter, (Whoops! Sorry. Wrong savior) you have to question the timing of it all. You're coming off your second recruiting national championship in a row, an undefeated regular season and a beatdown of your hated rival. Why chastise your fanbase so, especially now since this is the dawn of the return to greatness? I'd sure love to know. Could it be that all-knowing, all-seeing barometer, A-Day Game Attendance? Hmmm....

h/t: Mr. Jones