Nick Saban, the seasoned public speaker, is always looking for inventive ways to keep the Crimson Tide’s attention.

Saban, 72, shared during his weekly appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Thursday he had to go into his bag of tricks and found some dad joke-like tricks Wednesday.

“I’m always trying to come up with a new way to try to get them to pay attention and not focus on the wrong things,” Saban explained.

RELATED: Get your Alabama Crimson Tide gear

So the Alabama coach broke out the idiom.

“Yesterday after practice, I said, ‘I want everybody to put their hand over their ear, so I don’t want what I’m going to say to go in one ear and out the other,” he said with a laugh.

He called it the “ultimate attention getter.”

“It was like what was he going to say now? I said the same thing I’ve been saying all week. But the listened. I don’t know if they listened, but I think they listened yesterday.”

Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Mobile App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.