Nick Saban: "Nobody Would Listen" to Rat Poison Warnings Before Last Year's Texas A&M Game

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — With Texas A&M coming to town this week, Alabama finds itself in a remarkably similar situation to this time a year ago. 

The Crimson Tide is 5-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country. Texas A&M is 3-2, coming off a loss to Mississippi State. Alabama is a 24-point favorite according to SI Sportsbook. Last season, the Crimson Tide was a 17.5-point road favorite in College Station, yet the Aggies came away with the 41-38 victory to hand Nick Saban his first loss to an unranked opponent since 2007. 

While there are some differences too, mainly questions swirling around who will start at quarterback for both teams, Alabama head coach Nick Saban made one thing abundantly clear during Monday's press conference. His team has to handle outside noise better and cannot listen to the same rat poison it did heading into last years Texas A&M game. 

"I was talking about rat poison last year when we played this game," Saban said Monday. "Nobody would listen, players wouldn’t listen, y’all didn’t listen. They had lost the week before. We were big favorites. It was like no big deal. Just show up for this game, go play the next game."

It did not end up derailing Alabama's season and eventual run to the SEC championship game and College Football Playoffs, but the game obviously did end up being a big deal. Saban said he doesn't get affected by external factors because he doesn't listen to what the media says (even after saying he saw a headline in the paper earlier Monday morning about Alabama not revealing who would play quarterback.) However, the longtime coach did acknowledge that he knows it is something his players struggle with. 

"I really don't have any interest in what anybody thinks about any of this stuff," Saban said. "I do have an interest in how it affects and impacts the players on our team. I think it does. And I think they have to show maturity in how they manage it and know that external opinion, external noise, whatever you want to call it, rat poison, whatever it is, absolutely has nothing to do with the outcome of the game."

Alabama running back Jahmyr Gibbs, who is coming off his breakout game against Arkansas which earned him SEC offensive player of the week honors, was not on the Crimson Tide roster last season, but said his teammates have talked some about last year's matchup with the Aggies.

"I think they definitely feel some type of way about it," Gibbs said. "You never want to lose. It don’t matter what record a team has, the SEC’s hard every week, so I think we just need to prepare the right way for them."

Alabama and Texas A&M will kick off at 7 p.m. for a night game inside Bryant-Denny Stadium this Saturday on CBS.