It’s rare that Nick Saban is in the presence of a coach who has more national championships than he does, but that was the case this weekend.
Saban and College GameDay co-host Pat McAfee took batting practice on Friday with the Oklahoma softball team, winner of the last four NCAA Women’s College World Series championships. Here’s video of that:
GameDay is in Norman, Okla., this weekend to preview Saturday’s SEC showdown between Oklahoma and Tennessee. During one segment of the show, Sooners softball coach Patty Gasso and two of her players visited the GameDay set.
“Look at him hitting line drives at 72 years old,” McAfee remarked as the batting practice video of Saban played during the GameDay broadcast.
“Yeah, but I’ve got no power,” Saban replied.
College GameDay reporter Jess Sims pointed out that Gasso and Saban between them have 15 national championships. However, while Saban has seven rings between his tenures at Alabama and LSU, Gasso has eight — all with the Sooners.
As Saban did in Tuscaloosa in 2010, Gasso had a bronze statue of herself unveiled on the OU campus earlier this year. And like Saban has in the past, she deflected credit for the honor toward her players.
The Sooners have won the last four national championships, twice as many as Saban’s longest streak at Alabama. Saban’s Crimson Tide team won back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2012, then was ranked No. 1 for much of the 2013 season before losing to Auburn on the “Kick Six” play in the Iron Bowl.
“I think the intriguing thing to me is how you all sustain greatness, sustain success to win four in a row,” Saban said. “Once we won back-to-back — and it was so difficult that third year.”
