Nick Saban slights UCF over national champions claim

UCF has been spending the entire offseason celebrating its perfect season in college football, even calling themselves national champions. Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide won the national championship, and he thinks that needs to be respected.

Saban spoke with USA Today Sports about the matter and slighted UCF for celebrating despite not winning the playoff.

“If you honor and respect the system that we have, (despite) some of the imperfections that you understand that the system has, then you wouldn’t do something out of respect for the system that we have,” Saban told USA Today Sports. “I guess anybody has the prerogative to claim anything. But self-proclaimed is not the same as actually earning it. And there’s probably a significant number of people who don’t respect people who make self-proclaimed sort of accolades for themselves.”

Saban said he respected UCF and their accomplishments, but he made the point to say that they didn’t win the playoff.

The topic has been debated at times during the offseason with even some Tide players taking shots at UCF. Recently former UCF coach Scott Frost said he wouldn’t have gotten behind all the national champions claims had he remained at the school instead of leaving for Nebraska.