Alabama royalty has spoken. The troubles of the Crimson Tide football program has caught the eye of legendary coach Nick Saban.

On Friday’s edition of the Pat McAfee Show to preview the Week 2 slate of the college football season, Saban was first asked his thoughts on what Alabama needs to do to get out of the current rut it’s in.

McAfee has always had a way of connecting to people that traditional media members cannot. His eclectic personality, along with his football background has made his brand not only relatable to the viewers, but has become the ultimate destination for sports news.

From weekly interviews with Aaron Rodgers, Shams Charania and Mike Lombardi, McAfee was able to get Saban to do a weekly interview as well in his final season at the Crimson Tide helm – an achievement that seemed impossible a decade ago.

It helped prepare him for a post-coaching career in media, where he joined the College Gameday crew, maintaining that relationship with McAfee.

But with Alabama football, led by head coach Kalen DeBoer, being the center of heavy scrutiny after the disappointing Week 1 loss to Florida State, people are yearning for Saban’s thoughts on the outlook of the season.

And Saban reassured that you need to teach in an affirmative, yet positive fashion.

“When you have negative consequences, and you don’t teach and you don’t do a good job of identifying what we need to fix so the players could have something that they could relate to… if you don’t teach, it really affects morale in a negative way.”

He went onto discuss what had happened in Tallahassee:

“I think that there was something in that gamme that is tough to understand… Alabama looked great going down the field on the first drive, (then) Florida State gets the ball and goes down the field and scores. Then the whole psychological disposition of Alabama’s team changed. For what reason? Was it anxiety? Was it expectations? The one thing about coaching at Alabama, they expect you to win every game… and the standard is really high for what you’re supposed to accomplish. You need to protect your players from that… because that’s all they hear.”

Saban then went onto express hiis thoughts on how DeBoer might respond in Week 2:

“Kalen is a really good coach. He’s always had success everywhere he’s been. Maybe he hadn’t had to deal with this kind of scrutiny in the past, but if you’re going to be successful, you have to be able to self-assess and figure out what I can do better – and I know he’s reaching out to a lot of people trying to do that.”

It’s clear that Saban believes in the vision that DeBoer has for this program. But on the other hand, while DeBoer is a great football mind, the SEC is the jungle.

For context, prior to arriving in Tuscaloosa, DeBoer has coached at Sioux Falls in South Dakota, Fresno State, and Washington.

A far cry from the center of SEC football.

You can have the best X’s and O’s, but if you can’t shield the players from the demands that being a member of the Alabama Crimson Tide brings, it’s going to cause a mutiny internally.

With great power, comes great responsibility, and Week 2 is the perfect opportunity to prove if he’s ready for that, or if he responds to pressure by squandering.