At SEC Media Days, Nick Saban said this as a compliment toward his season-opening opponent, and it should be taken as such.

Florida State, especially, is built like an SEC team, you know, like our teams. You think of Florida State, you think of fast, explosive players, which they have a lot of. But they are also a big, physical, play great defense, tough, you know, team. And I think it's probably Jimbo [Fisher]'s experience in this league that sort of why he built his team that way.

Praising good teams that play tough defense, have balanced offenses, and have rabid fan bases as being “built like SEC teams” has long been a thing, especially when it comes to Clemson and Florida State. They’re nearby national champs who have ties to the SEC via rivalries, coaching histories, and cultures. We’ve used a version of the phrase ourselves, to describe the ACC’s 2017 season as likely being more defense-focused than usual.

There’s nothing insulting or offensive about saying Clemson and FSU are like SEC teams.

Saban’s citing the conference brand that he (and Urban Meyer, some older coaches, and a few other top coaches) built, and lots of people have made these comparisons as praise before. Some Clemson and FSU fans describe their programs as being more SEC than ACC.

It’s just not technically accurate.

They’re not like average SEC teams. They’re like SEC elites. The SEC’s been able to brand those two terms as synonymous, but they’re not.

How many SEC teams would trade their 2013-to-2018 circumstances with either Clemson or FSU? All except Bama?

The Bama dynasty is the only SEC team that’s reliably been as good as or better than these two.

So the best way to compliment Clemson or FSU isn’t to say they look like SEC teams.

It’s to say they look like Alabama.