FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Football Friday with Paul Finebaum 10-10-24 - Bryant Bank
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. After an illustrious week on FM Talk 1065 and across the nation with his radio show, Paul Finebaum joins us on this Friday, Paul. How has the week treated you? It has been a week to remember. You know, I was just starting in radio 40 years ago when we last encountered Vanderbilt, beating Alabama, and that was a disastrous season. Let's hope this one isn't. Yeah. What a wild game. I want to talk about that game, Paul, but my question for you is how soon do you go from being the Paul Finebaum watching a football game, enjoying what you're watching, most of the time, some of the time? When does that switch flip to where you go? The calls on Monday are going to be insane. Yeah. And when did that switch flip for you during that ban again? Yeah. I mean, my problem with that was I had flown home from Texas, got home early in the fourth quarter, and my wife is a big Alabama fan, and she's cheering for Alabama, and then it's suddenly dawned on her that she also has a degree from Vanderbilt. So once she was convinced Vanderbilt was going to win, then she completely went to Commodore on me. Is that right? So I wasn't thinking about the radio because I was convinced, I mean, even as Diego probably was spiking the ball, I was still thinking, "Yeah, I know they're down double at three stores, but Alabama will still figure out a way to win." It was only when they were shaking hands that I realized that we were in for quite a week, and then the tech started coming in the tweets, "Finebom show," and then what you get into is, "Can we live up to the hype?" And now I kept telling my producers, "Guys, calm down. I've been down this road before and you can't force it," and fortunately, the show lived up to it. We got the calls that we absolutely had to have, otherwise we wouldn't be the fun-bomb show. Yeah. I think you got... Who's the old guy that's only drinking all the beer? Maybe he doesn't do that now because of his health. You're a legend? No. Larry. Larry, thank you. He was not kind to you at all. Yeah, he quit the show about the 25th time, and he quit because Stephen A and I were on Monday trashing the boar, and I don't think a Larry figure has figured out yet that Alabama lost. Well, you wouldn't know it talking to some Bama fans around here. They just haven't mentioned it since Saturday. Is that the worst loss for Alabama ever? Is that fair to ask? I think it is. It was interesting, Sunday morning I was on the Sports Center and they were trying to get me to say that. I just wasn't quite sure. I needed it. It's the kind of thing that you just can't make. You have to start thinking there were worse losses in terms of consequence. I mean, the kick six was, and that was the DEF CON 1, that caught Alabama National Championship. This one just shattered the mystique, and I think a quick story. You may have heard this guy. He's a pressure watcher, which is a tough job, but he's proud of it as he should be. He calls himself the Nick Saban, the pressure watcher. Yeah, I can think I heard him. Yeah, so after Alabama beat Georgia, he started calling it, "Hey, I'm the Nick Saban and Kaitlyn DeBore of Pressure Walk." Monday, he said, "I am no longer the Kaitlyn DeBore of Pressure Walk." That's how bad it was, and then legend had the call that has now gone viral that it's like coming home and finding out your wife ran off with the neighbor. He said, "Kaitlyn DeBore, you can win a nad, and I still won't trust you." That said it all. Hey, Paul, if they had lost, they could have easily, without Ryan Williams on their roster, they probably lose to Georgia the week before. That would have been one of the worst losses ever because of the points that Georgia fell behind. Yeah, I think you're right, because just blowing that lead, but you could have still said, "Well, it's against Georgia." I've said this a hundred times this week, I'll say at the rest of my life, there is just something about losing to Vanderbilt. Every high school has a rival that you can't lose to, and somebody said, "I was on one of the cable network shows the other day," and this air-new diet professor said, "Well, it's a little bit like the homecoming queen dumping the captain of the football team in the quarterback for some nerdy, science project winner." Listen, we can talk all we want about how far Vanderbilt's program has come. It doesn't matter. It doesn't change the approach of Alabama family. You've stated it that way, just the optics of it being bandy, the doormat of the SEC for a hundred years in Alabama, the champion of the SEC for a hundred years. That's absolutely something else. As a Tennessee fan, I have been through those bandy losses before, and they aren't fun to take it all, and sometimes it necessitates a coaching change. That's not coming to Alabama, but Tennessee, another top five team who fell to an unranked opponent on the road this weekend, I wasn't feeling too well watching that game Saturday night, Paul, and watching the game itself didn't make me feel any better. I just keep wondering, I don't know, Hypo seems to kind of just be waiting on his defense to win games. We saw it with Oklahoma. We saw it there with Arkansas. You know, he doesn't trust Nicos. What do you see, right? Is there a trust issue between Hypo and Nico, you think? There could be, and I have to tell you, my personal feelings on that game, by the time that game started to go south for Tennessee, I just said to myself, I don't have time for this. I mean, I can't deal with a Tennessee loss right now on top of an Alabama loss. And so I really haven't, I refuse to think about the Tennessee game guys, but you're right. The Oklahoma game was a little bit of an outlier, Tennessee is just a bad road team. I don't know why that is. And I think you're right, Hypo is such a good offensive mind that he tends not to trust his own quarterbacks very much. He didn't do it last year with Joe Milton and for good reason, and I think he's very skittish on Nico, and he better figure out a way to get right quickly, because I'm not overly concerned about Florida at home, but the next week it's going to be maybe the entire season on the line. Yeah, that's Alabama, right? That's right. So as a Georgia guy, I'm watching Auburn play Georgia, and it's the first time I really watched an entire Auburn game this year, and I'm thinking to myself, they're not bad. They're pretty good, they're hanging around, there was 14 to 10 in the third quarter, eventually Georgia pulls away and wins, but there's just something is missing there, and they didn't have a ton of, it wasn't like the obvious turnovers or the pick six, but what is missing with Auburn to make them a winning team? Yeah, you know, watching Georgia Saturday, they're just kind of an ugly team, and part of them is they don't have the dynamic receiver. I don't know why they don't have that, that's all we hear about is how great the recruiting there is, but if you put Ryan Williams on that team, which was always a possibility, or you get another one of these receivers, and I think that's what Carson Beck is missing. He's got a good running back, but I mean, what was so interesting is I felt like Georgia didn't look good at all, and then they still beat Auburn by 18, and seemed disappointed. Exactly, and on the Auburn side, something's just not quite right, is it you freeze? And then you had Hugh Freeze going after his quarterback again, saying that you're supposed to hand the ball off on a certain play, and pulled it, every game Hugh Freeze has had something to say about the quarterback play. Yeah, because Hugh Freeze can't admit that he has shortcoming, I mean, it's really getting irritating, and I'm losing faith in Hugh Freeze, I know more losses really shouldn't, that shouldn't be a surprise, but just pack your quarterback. You're the guy who went all in on this guy, by the way, you could have had Diego Pavia. He beat you last year, and you didn't even try to get him, and frankly I talked to Diego earlier in the week, nobody really wanted him. Wow. That's something, wow. But Hugh Freeze just continues to dig himself deeper into a hole, and a couple more losses, and that hole is going to be pretty suffocate. It seems that way, and you also had the big A&M blowout win over Missouri, kind of running out of time to talk about that one. That was certainly surprising to some folks, but big games coming up this weekend, Paul, and for the first time, the Red River rivalry is an SEC game. Wow. Number one Texas, number 18 Oklahoma in Jerry's World, should be a big one Saturday. Yeah, I'm on my way out to that one, and it just feels so weird going to Dallas for an SEC game, and I realize the A&M played the offense on there, but just, oh, you Texas has always been one of those games, I mean, as a kid, it was still a game that you watched whether you really knew anything about the teams or not, but it's one of the most defining games, and people keep warning me about the food that, it's right in the middle of the state fair, and I'm told, don't eat. That's pretty blunt. Yeah, there should be a cardiologist on duty at all times, with all the pride. I mean, it's fried with, it's fried ice cream, it's fried everything out there, and in Texas. Well, they'll probably be some great food in Baton Rouge, they're kind of known for that kind of thing up the road from New Orleans, and it looks like it could be a very interesting football game, Ole Miss, after winning South Carolina against LSU. Yeah, I think this is the most important game of the weekend in the SEC, because the winner of this game is in good shape, and I know it sounds cliche that they have a loser, isn't trouble, but it is. If Ole Miss loses, that's two conference games. That means they also have Georgia ahead, and you hate to have to play Georgia in November as a must win, but that would be exactly the situation. Now, LSU's not in great shape either, they lost to Southern Cal, but the pressure I think is on Lane Kiffin here, because he bounced back against South Carolina, I really don't know what that means, bouncing back against South Carolina, but this team was a top five team a week ago, and now it's real. Yeah, and this game should be decided by coaching, right? I mean, we're in the middle of the season, no more surprises, everyone knows. Well, you have Lane Kiffin against Paul Feynman's best friend, Brian Kelly. Brian, Monday afternoon Kelly. Yeah, you know, we were joking that if Kelly loses this game, we might have to cancel a moment. You've become your Monday staple though, right? Yeah, but it's gotten so, I mean, we started doing this thinking you'd be a national championship every year, but we weren't expecting that to sweat games out. It's pretty awkward that when you're a high-cake coach, welcome in, another tough loss. Yeah, that is a tough conversation. Tough one to have for sure. Yeah, you can hear the audience tuning out. Well, you have Bama at home, South Carolina, I guess Game Cocks probably won't provide too much resistance to the tide, but we didn't think that about Vanderbilt last week either. Yeah, I fully, listen, I'm naive, I think Alabama will bounce back, but I didn't think last week would be a real challenge either, but so this is what's really tough about this game. I don't know about you guys, but who in the world wants to go to a football game or a 11 o'clock in the morning, especially when you're kind of down from the previous week. So that's a, I think a big negative for, and I think the most important thing is what will Kaitlyn de Bord be wearing? Yeah. He caught it for me. I had somebody, I had somebody text me the last week and say, did you get that t-shirt at Bucky's on the way to the game? Yeah. A lot of talk about his t-shirt, maybe to kind of split the criticism, he goes collared shirt sleeveless. I don't know, maybe something like that to get both fans of the kind of more casual wear and the more business casual there on the sidelines. Then you look like the meat guy at Windixie, so I don't, he dressed like the butcher. Yeah, you know, I don't mind you wearing a shirt, but I mean get it, get it, get the right shot, look, it looked like, you know, like first time you ever watch closures, I'll probably be in your t-shirt shrink for each other. Oh man, last game to get to Paul real quick before we let you go, Tennessee, also coming off that loss, at least they're at home this week, but a big rivalry game against Florida. There's going to be some real issues in Knoxville if they lose another one to the Gators. This might be one of the most underwhelming Florida Tennessee games I can ever remember. In the 90s, this literally was the game of the year and the SEC and even after that. But Billy Nature is kind of breathing again after, you know, beating two very average teams. So this would save his job if possible loses, he might be the coach on the hot seat. Could it be? This happens. Yeah. It's amazing to week. I don't think anybody's great. I don't think, you know, well, you know, I think George has got a lot of flaws. Alabama obviously isn't perfect. It's just going to be an interesting season because every week you can't turn your head away from any game because an upset could happen. You know, the last couple of weeks have been really extraordinary. And it's all because of upsets and there's a million reasons why a motion transfer, but I think the transfer portal is probably the biggest reason. All right, Paul, we really appreciate your time again this week. It means so much for us that you take time out of your week to answer these questions and have a conversation with us. So thanks again and we look forward to talking to you next week. It's always great guys. See you next week. Paul Finebaum, Football Fridays with Finebaum right here on FM talk 1065 and Dan and Dalton on Mobile Morning's. And it's all brought to you by Bryant Bank. Bryant Bank. Yeah. That's right. We appreciate Bryant Bank for sponsoring this. We've been doing it for some time now and we always appreciate our conversation with Paul Finebaum coming up more Mobile Morning's on the way. [MUSIC]