Alabama head coach Nick Saban faced the media Monday after S Geno Smith’s 2nd DUI bust in as many years and DT Jonathan Taylor’s 2nd domestic abuse charge in roughly the same span. Though Taylor was dismissed from the team Tuesday, AL.com’s Kevin Scarbinsky was unimpressed with Saban’s remarks, arguing the latter “spent far more time and energy defending himself, his decisions, his program and even his two players,” rather than addressing the real issues at hand.

He made sure to tell us that Geno Smith is a good person, despite his second DUI arrest in two years. Saban used those exact words to describe Jonathan Taylor – “I still think he’s a good person” – despite Taylor’s record of two domestic violence arrests in two different states while a member of two different SEC football programs in less than a year.

This is all Saban said about domestic violence during his 13 minutes at the podium:

“I certainly don’t condone that kind of behavior, especially when it comes to how females are treated. That’s something we try to create a lot of awareness for with our players. We would certainly be very cautious about any player that had any character problem but especially something like this would be something that we would be very careful about, you know, in the future.”

This is all he said about drunk driving:

“Rather than try to condemn Geno for what he did, which I don’t approve of, I don’t even drink so I don’t approve of driving and putting other people in danger when they’re drinking. So I don’t want you to think I’m condoning what he did. I don’t. We’re disappointed in it.”

It would’ve been encouraging to hear the angry Saban thunder away at the NCAA’s hypocrisy in accepting huge amounts of money from beer advertising during the NCAA Tournament while its schools battle the very real problems of underage and excessive drinking on college campuses.

Imagine the headlines today if Saban had attacked the issue of domestic violence with the same fire and fury he once turned on unscrupulous agents when he compared them to “pimps.”