Was Nick Saban really so engrossed in talking football that he once missed an armed robbery?

Kentucky coach Mark Stoops once was recruited hard by Alabama coach Nick Saban when Saban was a defensive coach at Michigan State. Saban made it hard on Stoops to turn him down, but ultimately Stoops chose Iowa.

On his weekly radio show Kentucky coach Mark Stoops talked about that recruitment, but he also talked about a crazy story that his uncle Bob Stoops once told him. A story about the time uncle Bob was coaching at Youngstown State and meet with Saban in a rougher area near campus to talk football at a diner and they got so into talking football they completely missed the establishment being robbed.

This is how Saban told the story to ESPN in 2015,

"We're sitting at the bar, we're talking football," Saban said. "We're drawing up plays, we're arguing about stuff. Somebody came in with a shotgun and held the bartender up and left. We didn't know it happened. The police came and the bartender said, 'well don't ask these two guys what happened because they didn't even see it.'"

 

I mean wow, this is how dedicated Nick Saban is to his craft, completely miss an armed rivalry because of talking football strategy level of dedicated.