Hey, Saban, it's just a game

Judging by his comments regarding Alabama's "catastrophic" loss to Louisiana-Monroe, Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban could use a healthy dose of real-world perspective. (BUTCH DILL/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

It's Rivalry Week in this wild and crazy college football season.

But what is not wild and crazy - just crazy - was the reaction of first-year Alabama coach Nick Saban to a stunning 21-14 loss to Louisiana-Monroe last Saturday.

Alabama - which meets instate rival Auburn tomorrow - is not supposed to lose to hyphenated schools at any time and when it follows a loss to Mississippi State, the people in Alabama are not happy. Nor was Saban. But that does not explain his reaction during a press briefing earlier in the week.

This is what he said: "Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event. It may be 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II and that was a catastrophic event."

So losing to Louisiana-Monroe is what, Nick?

Surprising. Disappointing. Embarrassing. All of the above. Catastrophic? PLEASE.

Not surprisingly, Alabama went into damage control quickly.

"What Coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with tragedy, everyone needs to understand that," said Alabama spokesman Jeff Pearlman. "He was not equating losing football games to those catastrophic events. The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. Those were two tremendous examples that everyone can identity with."

Oh, people can identify with those events, all right. But not in the context of losing a football game.

If Saban had made those remarks immediately after losing to ULM, we could chalk it up to a mind freeze from a coach who was stunned by seeing his team lose at home because they were outplayed, outcoached, and outhustled.

But to make that statement 48 hours after the game means that he gave it some thought and chose that analogy.

Bad choice, Nick. Very bad choice.

Maybe Saban can make a trip to Ground Zero in New York City and visit the relatives of the 343 firemen who died on 9/11 while they were simply doing their jobs.

Football, even in Alabama, is not life and death. What happens on a football field in terms of results is not catastrophic. And Alabama can spin the story around the world by saying that is not what Saban meant to say.

But the plain fact is that he did say it. He said it the same way that he said he wasn't leaving the Miami Dolphins to coach at Alabama and seemed offended when reporters kept bringing up the issue.

Later he explained his way out of that lie by saying it was true when he said it and things changed.

Saban is getting paid more than $4 million a year to coach football players and supposedly mold student-athletes into men who can lead productive lives.

Saban may very well be doing a good job in both areas. But on Monday, he fumbled. Badly.

Alabama plays Auburn tomorrow. As we said, on a national basis, it doesn't mean a whole lot. In the state of Alabama, the Iron Bowl always means something. At Alabama, which has lost five straight games to Auburn, it means much more.

Auburn is a better team and should win. If the Tigers do, what will Saban call that? A tragedy similar to what Hurricane Katrina did to the city of New Orleans?

College football is part of the fabric of Southern society. That is fine. But in the end, it is still a game. And, yes, people's lives are affected by those results. But to even mention a game, any game, in the same breath as 9/11 or what happened at Pearl Harbor is appalling and Saban should know better and issue an apology.

Mark Blaudschun can be reached at blaudschun@globe.com.