ESPN College Gameday personality, Pat McAfee let it be known that he did not agree with Nick Saban’s decision to start Jermaine Burton against Mississippi State.
McAfee, who host the “Pat McAfee Show,” feels Saban did not make the ‘right play’ by playing Burton after he was seen on video striking a female Tennessee fan after the Vols defeated the Crimson Tide earlier this month.
“But I don’t know how Saban doesn’t punish that guy,” said McAfee on Outkick’s “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich.” “I don’t know how, just for the optics of it, just for you’re playing Mississippi State. You’re about to beat the hell out of them, just as a message going forward. okay, I understand you’re a football player, they came onto your field. But you can’t just be openly slapping women. It’s a terrible situation. I think they put all of college football in a bad spot by not punishing him…I don’t think Saban made the right play here. I think you have to at least do some sort of punishment. I’m happy to hear the girl’s okay, but any time you put your hands on a woman, I think it should be a message sent to everybody like ‘Hey, we can’t have that in our particular community, our society. It’s not good for football. It’s not good for our program. It’s certainly not good for you as a human to think we could do that.’I think there should’ve been some punishment and I have no idea how it goes moving forward.”
Saban discussed Alabama’s decision to play Burton after the Tide defeated Mississippi State.
“I talked to the guy, we have him in a counseling program,” Saban said.”It’s not an anger management program which people announced today, nobody ever said that. It’s not the problem. It’s not the issue. But it’s about having the proper respect for other people and I didn’t think it was necessary to suspend the guy. If you knew the whole story maybe you wouldn’t either but I’m not gonna divulge that.”
