ESPN's Mike Wise Tweets Nick Saban Quotes, Later Announces They're Sarcastic And Deletes

Mike Wise of ESPN’s The Undefeated—known for trying to bait other outlets into falling for fake news and complaining about that awful —shared some quotes from Nick Saban today that are, as it turns out, not actually quotes from Nick Saban.

Wise first tweeted this, which is seemingly meant to be a joking twist on Saban’s quotes about the eclipse today. Without context, though—as any individual tweet is without context—it passes for a fairly credible quote from the famously terse Alabama coach:

A few minutes later, Wise followed up with a “quote” that was exaggerated enough to be more obvious in its attempt at humor:

That second one didn’t get too much traction. But the first one did—an ESPN writer from a verified account, tweeting what reasonably appeared to be a quote from a major college football figure on the most pressing cultural and political issue of the moment.

Three hours after his initial tweet, Wise deleted his “quotes” and apologized to Alabama’s sports information director, who presumably was not too happy.

His bad, folks! Not like he was once suspended from his gig at the for a month after making up a fake Ben Roethlisberger rumor or anything like that.

Update: An ESPN spokesman said that Wise has been “disciplined” for his tweets. They told Deadspin that they could not offer further specifics, as the situation is an internal personnel matter.