Nick Saban is not happy with the quality of depth his team has at the moment.

Of course, Alabama’s depth is better than nearly every other program in the country’s. So talking about a lack of depth at Alabama is relative. But when Saban was asked Saturday about his level of concern about the practice performance of players who aren’t first on the depth chart, he made a poop reference.

“Well I’ve been concerned about this all along so I don’t even know why you’d ask the question because you all just think whatever happens we just s–t another player,” Saban said. “Everything’s going to be perfect. All of our fans think that. You think that. That’s what you write about. That’s the message that you send out there. Yeah I worry about it all the time. I may be the only one, but yeah I do worry about it.”

Alabama is at or near the top of every preseason poll for good reason. The Tide are the defending national champions and have stellar recruiting classes every year. There’s no doubt that this year’s Alabama team has more questions to answer than previous Alabama teams — we’ll get into some of those when Alabama comes up next week in our preseason top 25 series — but there’s no reason to think on Aug. 18 that Alabama will have a dropoff in performance.

Saban apparently thinks there could be. Or at least wants his players to believe that. He’s very good at using news conferences to get points across. While there may be a kernel of truth to his comments, there could also be some grandstanding on Saban’s part. And that’s what makes him a fascinating coach.

It’s also not the first time Saban has used a poop reference about his football team. He famously said that Georgia Southern had run through his team like “s–t through a tin horn.”

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter

To listen to the Yahoo Sports College Podcast, visit Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or Google Play. (Interview segment with Houston’s Ed Oliver begins at the 37:20 mark.)