Nick Saban, darling of SEC media days, was initially denied entry after forgetting his credential

DALLAS — In a freshly pressed gray suit and pink tie, a mic protruding from behind his left ear and a thin layer of makeup on his forehead and cheeks, the 72-year-old man glares into a television camera as four stage lights illuminate his features.

Meet the newest member of the college football media contingent making his SEC media days debut: Nick Saban.

He kicked things off by forgetting his credential in his hotel room.

“It's a little different,” Saban said on air Monday. “I've never worn a credential in my life and was always for 17 years able to get into SEC media day without a credential. I had to go back to the room today and get my credential to get in.”

It’s true: A security officer at first denied a credential-less Saban access into media day on Monday, the first of the four-day extravaganza in the downtown Dallas Omni Hotel. He scrambled back up to his room, fetched the badge and found his way into the event.

Disaster averted.

What commenced then was a very unusual day here: Nick Saban, the analyst not coach, parading across media day not as the interviewee but as the interviewer. He spent nearly four hours, not at the main room podium answering questions from hundreds of journalists, but toward the back of the room, from an elevated SEC Network stage, offering opinions and analysis and even giving a prediction (Gasp!).

His 22nd media day appearance was, perhaps, his most entertaining showing yet.

He predicted Georgia and Texas to play in the SEC championship game, took a shot at new coworker Paul Finebaum and even picked a surprise team to make a run for the league title (Ole Miss).

Saban went as far as to create, maybe unintentionally, a viral clip — not unlike those media quips that he once scowled at as coach.

“What kind of tickles me is all these [media members] asking these questions about how Texas always ran the [Big 12],” Saban said. “They're not going to run the SEC.”

Tweet it. Post it. Publish the headline.

But this new media member isn’t all sizzle. He’s got substance, too, capable of speaking intelligently about each SEC team, position by position, their strengths and weaknesses. He watched replays of all 16 spring games. He’s got notebooks and film of everyone, spending his summer months studying all 16 teams while at his lake or beach home.

In fact, he began preparing for media days more than a month ago when, in mid-June, he held phone calls with nearly all of the leagues’ head coaches to discuss their teams.

“He prepares like crazy,” said Josh Maxson, an Alabama associate athletic director for communications whose new role is much like his old role the past nine years: handling communications for Saban, this time as a big-time media personality and not a big-time football coach.

Coaches here are just fine with Saban’s new role. After all, it beats his old role, where for nearly two decades at Alabama he won 87 percent of his SEC games, nine league championships and six national titles.

“I’d rather have Nick doing this and not on the sideline,” LSU coach Brian Kelly said. “At least he’s not scheming against me.”

Oh but he is scheming.

“I’ve never seen someone study a TV rundown like he does,” said Peter Burns, the SEC Network host. “It’s a surreal thing. He’s dialed in like he’s at halftime of the SEC championship game.”

On the set, he’s not afraid to joust with his new colleagues. Finebaum, half joking, said Saban retiring has resulted in the “worst six months of my life.”

Saban responded, “He tried to ruin mine for 17 years so I guess we’re even.”

He’s one of them now. One of us. The media.

On Monday, Saban meandered from the SEC Network set and into the ESPN green room, sipping coffee and eating snacks like all the rest of the TV talent.

“I went from the most nervous I’ve ever been on the field interviewing him to standing next to him drinking coffee,” SEC Network reporter Alyssa Lang said laughing.

But not everything has changed.

As a way to avoid too much interaction with individual reporters, the SEC has devised hidden hallways and back passages for coaches to use as they move from one group interview session to another, winding their way through a labyrinth of service elevators, dining rooms and even kitchens to get from Point A to B.

Coaches weren’t the only ones using them on Monday. So did Saban, a savvy way to skirt the many loud voices across the 44 — forty-four! — radio station booths set up along the league’s famous “radio row.”

But he couldn’t avoid the attention completely.

During his opening speech Monday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey made mention of Saban’s presence here. Maybe he can help the league “avoid rat poison,” Sankey joked, referring to Saban’s infamous line from years ago to describe inflated expectations of oneself.

“He can evaluate my performance since he’s sitting in the room listening,” Sankey said, gesturing to Saban, at the back of the room, cross-legged on the SEC Network stage and scribbling notes in a notebook — just like any old media member would do.

Turns out, a couple hours later during an exchange between the two men, Saban did evaluate Sankey. “Really good job today,” Saban told him.

Did the commissioner just get the blessing of the darling of media days? Sure did.

Coaching or not, Saban remains the star of this extravaganza while part of the media horde itself — as difficult as that is to believe.

“I didn’t picture that,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said with a smile. “I had a conversation on the phone with him [in June] and today we talked. It reminded me, even though you can be conservative and old school and all that, that he is so good at adapting and growing and changing even offensively. And now for him to do this? He’s so serious about it. He’s so unique. It’s why he’d be great at anything he did.”