Nick Saban has finally decided to go on the record about why he lied to South Florida last December. (The interview was with Sports South, shown regionally in SEC country.)

“I’m interested in staying here,” he told the Miami media just days before accepting an offer from Crimson Tide athletic director Mal Moore. “I’m committed to our team.”

On more than one occasion he lashed out at the Miami media by denying he had been approached or was interested in the job. Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga even relayed a message from Saban in late December that the coach was “not going anywhere.”

Nick contends that he never had a good relationship with the South Florida press, and that the call of College Football in the South drew him back. He also joins the growing list of SEC coaches who take shots at other major conferences, saying that the Big 10 (a conference he couldn’t win while at Michigan State, by the way) is very top-heavy:

“No disrespect to the Big Ten, but most of the time there were three or four good teams in the Big Ten each year,” he said. “Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State were pretty good and then there might be another team or two that was better that year. But here (in the SEC) there were eight or nine teams that were all pretty good. That was a challenge to play with the kind of consistency you needed to be able to sustain that kind of performance.

And of course the SEC is the best place for college football.

“The Big Ten has a lot of tradition,” Saban said, “but the SEC to me is different because most of the people’s passion is greater because they grew up relating to their school. Pro sports were not as prominent 25 years ago in the South so this was everybody’s passion and they identified and related.”

Well, Nick, at least you won’t piss off anyone on this year’s schedule …