Alabama coach Nick Saban told reporters on Monday that it would be “presumptive” to assume he’d be resting starting quarterback A.J. McCarron on Saturday against WKU simply because the Toppers were a Sun Belt Conference team.

Two days later, Saban felt reporters still weren’t giving WKU enough respect.

“I hate to be negative with anybody but when you people start writing stuff about people that we’re playing, that doesn’t give them the proper respect, that’s not fair,” Saban said at a Wednesday press conference. “That’s not fair to them, to their players who work hard and earn it, that’s not fair to our players who need to respect them and to make presumptions like you all make really upsets me. It really does.

“It’s so unfair. You don’t need to write about that. There’s so many good things that you can write about happening around here that people would be interested in. I’d love to see some of you do a little bit of research and figure it out. It’d really do my heart good.

“…I’m just giving you my opinion. I respect what you all do. I understand you’re not here to promote our program or anything like that, but I would appreciate if you would give everybody involved in the game… We play the games for a reason. We play the games for a reason. And to make all these predictions on what’s going to happen takes away from the game, I think.”

Saban went on to praise WKU junior linebacker Andrew Jackson, an All-Sun Belt performer one year ago.

“He’s a thumper,” Saban said. “He’s really instinctive, he really plays the run well, he’s really physical… I think he’s an SEC player, no doubt.”

The Toppers and Crimson Tide kick off at 2:39 p.m. on Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Alabama is currently a 40 point favorite, according to VegasInsider.com.