With SEC Media Days just a few weeks away, Georgia may be getting all the buzz coming off back-to-back National Championships, but according to SEC Network host Paul Finebaum, “Alabama is still the biggest school in college football.”
Alabama will be without their Heisman-winning quarterback Bryce Young who was drafted No. 1 overall in the 2023 NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers, as well as nine other key contributors that departed to the NFL. Along with not having a definite answer to replace Young at quarterback, Nick Saban had to replace both offensive and defensive coordinators over the offseason.
Despite all the question marks and uncertainty, Alabama still has plenty of talent surrounding whoever wins the starting quarterback job - but most importantly, they still have Nick Saban.
“I think if you're really a smart, analytical person and you don't let emotions get in the way, you've come to the conclusion that Alabama will be playing for the SEC Championship and maybe more, and there's a couple of reasons for it,” Finebaum said Wednesday on WJOX's "McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning."
“Nick Saban is still the biggest name in college football," he added. "He's got a magical glow around him. It's like Tiger Woods was in golf. LeBron in the last 20 years in the NBA, Tom Brady in the NFL. You can go up and down the list, but he is still that guy.”
Last year was not Alabama’s best season, and former Saban assistant Kirby Smart has Georgia trending in the right direction by winning back-to-back championships, but Finebaum thinks that Saban and the Alabama program are still the biggest school in college football and are still generating the most conversation going into SEC Media Days.
“He could not have been any more down than he was last year and he still was grabbing toward we didn't know until noon on the first Sunday in December whether he'd get in or not,” Finebaum said. “I mean, I didn't think he would. I didn't think they deserved it. But you weren't sure because that's who Nick Saban is and that's what the Alabama program means. And when I say Nick Saban is still the biggest name in the industry, guess what? Alabama is still the biggest school in college football. And I don't mean that as a negative toward Georgia. It's just a fact."
He continued, "It's still the school that generates the most conversation. When I'm on the east coast or the west coast or in the Midwest, people say, ‘hey, what about Alabama?’ I don't get a lot of Georgia questions outside of our program because it's not there yet. It may be a year from now there'll be a lot of Georgia questions if they win three in a row.”
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