Video of Nick Saban Comparing Loss to 9/11

Nick Saban is often one who attracts controversy, usually though it has to do with his decisions to continually hop jobs, from Michigan State to LSU to the Miami Dolphins to now Alabama. Monday, though, responding to his team's third consecutive loss, this time to lowly Louisiana Monroe, he compared the loss to a "catastrophic event" like Pearl Harbor and the terrorist attacks on September 11th. While watching Morning Joe this morning, their sports reporter, Fred Roggin, had video of Saban's comments.

An Alabama spokesman tried defending Saban's comments, by saying he was not trying to equate losing a football game with 9/11.

A Saban spokesman said the coach chose the 9-11 and Pearl Harbor references to illustrate the challenges facing his team.

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

Saban may not have meant any harm with his comments, but putting losing a football game on the same level as 9-11 or Pearl Harbor may go a bit too far. The logic of trying to get your team to come together after difficult times makes sense, but I'm sure there are many people who found Saban's comments, trying to use the tragedies of 9-11 and Peal Harbor to fire up his team is something a lot of people will find offensive.