FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
FOOTBALL FRIDAYS WITH PAUL FINEBAUM: Presented by BRYANT BANK 10-04-24
It's time for football Friday with Paul Finebaum, preceded by Bryant Bank. Your hometown bank with big bank benefits, located in Mobile and Baldwin counties. Now, here's Dan Brennan and Dalton R. Wig. I'll ask you this question. Dalton, does football actually exist without Paul Finebaum? I'm going to say it does, but it's not nearly as fun. Paul Finebaum, who was exchanging gifts with his callers on the air again that have wished him death. I guess you're doing okay, huh, Paul? Yeah, listen, I hate to correct everybody at the beginning, but it's not exactly true. This caller, Jim, I'm touched on Luca, did not wish me death. He just said, "I want you to have a hard cut." That's all? And then slowly recover, I guess. Yeah. Now, again, I think this was progress just about three years ago, he said, "I hope you get stage four cancer or so." Yeah, listen, even though hard disease is in my family, I have worked hard to overcome it. I mean, even with our attack, I still think I can take his call. It's quite a perilous job. Football is so passionate about football. You're sitting across here every Monday through Friday. Good to know the country's coming together. Yeah, it is. And, you know, I'm not joking here. Everyone has a reason they love the Paul Finebaum Show, or I guess some hate the Paul Finebaum Show. A lot of our folks love the callers in the back and forth. A lot of the folks like me love the interviews with the coaches and players you have. But when you have a week like this after the devastation of Hurricane Helene last week and so much of your listening audience was in the path of that storm or currently trying to help folks in that storm. It's always a reminder when an event like that happens and the Paul Finebaum community kind of rallies, it's something really great to see, Paul. Yeah, and you listen, everybody listening knows about dealing with hurricanes. I've dealt with it from a distance, but this one really gets close, not very far from our studios and so many people are affected by it. And it's unlike the storms that emit the Gulf where you see it and you know exactly what happened. We're still finding out. But I appreciate you saying that and that is the thing I do love about college football though. It makes us forget almost everything if possible and that's really been the double screen of this week with the tragedy on one hand and then the ecstasy of what happened Saturday night in Tuscaloosa. Yeah, what a game, Paul. I don't even know, you know, I'm a Georgia fan and so I look at it through one lens. I talked to an Alabama fan the other night on the phone who he seemed to be as upset with the game as I was like, Georgia played like garbage, he was like, no, I think Alabama. So it's funny. It was an amazing game, but there's a lot of different opinions on it. Yeah, I was a little surprised by especially old line Alabama fans who could only find the fault. I don't look at it that way. I happen to speak Wednesday on our show with Kayla and the Boar, he didn't look too upset. We live in a result-oriented world and no matter how you get to a certain point. And I do think the good news for Alabama is that they're playing Vanderbilt this weekend and it's a good team to recover from and play your C-game, still probably win. I saw a lot of, I saw all the faults you could possibly see on the Georgia side and I'm probably distorted in that way. But you know what else Dan, like watching Alabama play in that first half, I was reminded they really hadn't played, you know, any one of significance. I mean, they've played some names this year, but it's almost like they held a lot of that stuff back knowing that Georgia was right around the corner. Well, Georgia, they had no clue in the first half how to stop Alabama. It was an amazing performance for one half at the very least, Paul. Yeah, and the Boar told me that it was really, I thought Alabama just came in like, jacked up, but he said it was just simply a matter of execution. They were hitting everything and I think there's a level of, they literally ran out of tricks. But everything they did was right and at some point it catches up to you and the funniest thing to Boar said was that he said, I felt like after the Ryan Williams touchdown would clearly left too much time on the clock. Yeah, they almost did. Yeah, but he said something interesting too, and I had not thought about it because I mean when, you know, when Georgia scored that touchdown on the play before and they went for two and didn't get it, it changed the game because they got it, I believe it was going to be a three point game. Yeah. So Alabama could have played for a field goal. Georgia, maybe it would have been in Prevent instead, they missed it. So Alabama had to, you know, took a different approach and so to any way, I mean, I mean, you can go back into any game and find a thousand different things. But to me, the fact that Kid Rott made it to the game made it much bigger up. He's the SEC's Taylor Swift. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't decide who was worse, Kid Rott or John Daley. I talk with Paul Feynbaum for Football Fridays presented by Bryant Bank and the other side of the state, Auburn, they were all geared up to get their first big SEC win of the year and against Oklahoma nonetheless. I think 21 10 lead they had, they had it, Peyton Thormers taking care of the ball, and then all hell breaks loose ball and Oklahoma storms back and wins the game. Yeah. That was great. I want to congratulate Auburn for, you know, really putting up a good effort. I was down there the other day and it was a sunny day, but it felt like storm clouds were moving in. A few freeze has absolutely blown this quarterback's situation and, you know, now admitting what he didn't admit in the summer that he made a colossal mistake really doesn't solve the problem. What we're trying to do is, well, they got a big commitment this week, somebody switched over from Notre Dame, like that matter. I can't really matter, by the way, and, and now it's going to be a spin game. And it really depends on the, on the, on what happens in some of these other, they just have nothing to let me, they're not going to win this weekend. They're not going to be Alabama, so you start doing the math and who can they be? And if they have a, what would look like a disaster season, a few freeze will likely survive, but he'll survive about a wounded as a coach can be. You know, it's, well, on college game day this week, they, they, they, they go to a coach on the field ahead of their game, they're just strolling along hours before the game. And they decided to have a conversation with Lane Kiffin. And so Kentucky of course is playing Ole Miss was at 11 o'clock kick. Yeah. I think it was an early game. And, and Paul, he's strolling along in Oxford along and, and he, like he doesn't have a care in the world. He just seems so confident and, and, and, and like I say, like he didn't have a big game coming up that in two hours, I just thought it was, it was poetic justice. Kentucky went in there and beat him and I, I, you know, I don't necessarily root against Lane Kiffin, but I was like good for Kentucky. Yeah. No, listen though. He was, he was sitting there, he was walking around the field going after I went to this game. How am I gonna go after Paul Pineball on Twitter and, you know, he, he did that whole thing about what am I good at? What's he good at? I mean, I mean, I, I mean, that, that was, that was a devastating loss because, you know, they still have Georgia, some of the other major games as everybody knows and, and that, that loss will hurt you badly because Kentucky is not going to end up in a league game. And, you know, they've lived off of that Georgia loss, but, so what ultimately that game really exposed Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin and, you know, they play a tough Carolina Saturday and it's a really dangerous game for them because, you know, they lost their Kentucky in South Carolina beat Kentucky by three touchdowns if you want to do the, the crazy math of what happened before you, your team played this game. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see if the heat gets turned up on Kiffin. We're always talking about what job he'll move up to next, but will Ole Miss be tired of this after some time having such high expectations and then seeing the team fall apart when least expected. Yeah. Let's see what happens the rest of the year. Yeah. I mean, he's still, he's still in a good spot there, but hey, well, hey, listen to you. A lot of people in Florida want him and I check if we should know that it might be tough for them to hire him because he would be playing in the CFP. Well, it may not be hard anymore. It might not. As far as the games we have come up this season, you referenced it earlier, but Auburn, off of that terrible loss, their first road game here, they're playing Georgia and Georgia coming off that late failed comeback attempt. Is Georgia just role here, Paul? You would think so. I mean, this would be a big game for Georgia to get back on track and to really let it rip. I don't give Auburn any chance in this game. I think the number 23, I think it's going to be a route. The only question is at some point, Kirby Smart goes, you know, what's the point? We have bigger fish to fry this season. So that you mentioned that Auburn did get at least good recruiting news this week, flipping that quarterback, Deuce from Notre Dame. I mean, it's not a story that's going to be like immediate impact, obviously. He's a player who's still in high school, but at least a program looking for some good news. They got some. Yeah. And you expect stuff like that. It's amazing what money will do and right now in Auburn, I think they're pretty desperate to get a quarterback. I have no real thing I do whether this guy is the right one or not. We all know how difficult it is to, I mean, Alabama's got a roster full of guys who were ranked higher from this guy and they haven't played a game yet. So I mean, these are just things that you don't know about, but I think ultimately depending on how this season goes, the question isn't what T-free gets in a recruiting, in the recruiting situation. You know, how many players does he hold onto? Number one. There's one guy on his team that everybody will be coming after, I'd rather not identify him. The man would look like I'm interfering, but you guys know who he is. Yes. Have an idea. Also, Tennessee balls had a buy week last week, so a little time off, but this looks like it could be a trap game for them, Paul Arkansas in Fayetteville at night. I know the hogs will be ready for that one. I think it is a dangerous game. Tennessee has not shown any signs of stopping this year, but this is literally maybe the last stand for Sam Pittman. Probably, you don't have to stretch to make the case that they could be undefeated right now. They blew the Oklahoma State game. That was an overtime. They had every chance to beat A&M, and this win might save his job, and a loss here. That means three losses, and it looks like time is going to start running out on him. You know, Paul, part of our job is news as well as sports. And right now, Maduro in Venezuela, the guy that stole the election, is forcing his country to celebrate Christmas in October. And that's a little bit to me. That's like, boy, that's strange. And then I saw that University of Central Florida is favored going to Gainesville, Florida to play something, and that's the SEC's Christmas in October. Florida is an underdog at home against UCF. Shouldn't you fire your coaches over that back alone? I mean, before the game. Yeah, and this is a UCF team that just got waylaid by Dion Sanders last week. True. By no means, well, according to some of our friends, you know, a great team. But that is really amazing, and I think back to coaching longevity, it may be your loses game, he might not get out off the field before they give him the big slip. Yeah, that's something I never thought I'd see Florida a dog to a group of five team in Gainesville. Unreal. It's absolutely unbelievable. And then the game, you'll be at Missouri at Texas A&M, A&M with the one loss. Missouri has had some tight ones, but they're undefeated. If A&M wants to work their way back into the college football playoff, I imagine this is a big, big game. Yeah. But believe it or not, this is the only ranked versus ranked game in the entire country. And I'm usually not one that says that, but when you're covering a game, you try to make it sound interesting to the audience. Our interest is now so peak. Yeah, listen, I got more stats if you want to be a football ball. Well, I think Mike Elko, it was probably a tall ask to have him come in week one and be ready firing on all cylinders. But now that we're four or five weeks in, I think A&M could be pretty formidable. Yeah. I really like what they're doing. I mean, they're already to the backup quarterback, but they're calling card as defense. And I think this game's really about Missouri. I just don't really believe in this program. Everybody's tried to make them out to be something sensational, but they just don't look that good. And I think ultimately we are going to find out. I'm leading. I think I missed my pick every week, wherever we've been. So I'll probably miss it again by going with the home team A&M. Yeah, but I see that. And when you say everyone's trying to make Missouri out to be something big, I think you meant coach drink himself. Yeah. I mean, he's exactly. I mean, this guy is a four man lane kid. He is. There's a lot of similarities there. He's not funny. He really is not that gloeb. And please don't call me on this because I'll have to see this guy someday. And I have to act like I like him. Paul, we appreciate your time. We took a lot of it this morning, but every week when we have this conversation, it means a lot to us and our listening audience. So thank you so much for coming on again for football Fridays. A pleasure, guys. Have a great weekend. Paul, fine, bomb football Fridays brought to you by Brian Bank, by the way. And Paul brings it, man. He does. See, for our audience, he doesn't hold back. No, he doesn't. And you could catch him every weekday afternoon, two to six, right here on FM Talk 106.5 Football Fridays with Paul Finebaum, presented by Brian Bank. More of our show, Mobile Morning's After the Break. [MUSIC]