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‘I don’t believe it is an honest game’


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Paul Finebaum on college football: ‘I don’t believe it is an honest game’

Updated: May. 03, 2022, 8:18 a.m. | Published: May. 02, 2022, 3:50 p.m.
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SEC Nation host Paul Finebaum talks to his co-hosts during the SEC Nation broadcast in Lexington, Ky., Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Clubb)AP

 
 

Paul Finebaum, in some of his most biting commentary on the state of college football, said he doesn’t “believe it is an honest game.”

 

The ESPN and SEC Network analyst, in an appearance on “McElory and Cubelic in the Morning” on WJOX-FM 94.5, doesn’t believe the rapidly changing landscape of the sport will diminish college football, even as the focus has shifted to NIL and the transfer portal..

 

“I spent so much time early on looking into illegalities, and I was passionate about it,” Finebaum said. “I believed college football should be run honestly. I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t believe it is an honest game. I want to vomit every time I hear an administrator talk about student-athletes because that’s not what they are anymore.”

 

The comment was sparked by conversation about the transfer portal and NIL, and how they were somehow going to bring the college football world crashing down around us.

 
 

Why do so many people feel that way?

 

“It comes from our past in what every time period we remember that we grew up in,” he explained. “Fifties, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, the way it used to be. Well, the world changes every day.

 
 

“I’m tired of hearing it because it’s not true. ... On Saturdays this fall, there will still be, depending on the game, millions of people watching. Cumulatively the numbers are massive. And there will be 90,000 people, 100,000 people in the stadiums, and, you know what? There will be millions of people around the country betting on football, which is what drives it.”

 

Finebaum points out that people will come and go as the game changes and evolves whether it is NIL or something later down the road. But at the end of the day, he added, it is all about one thing: winning.

 
 

Take a listen:

 
 
 

Mark Heim is a sports reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.

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  • 1 year later...




So after over a decade of unprecedented winning in recruiting and on the field Captain Obvious figured this out? 

Well done Paul.

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On 9/19/2023 at 9:03 PM, cptau said:

Finebaum made a fortune off talking endlessly about schools breaking the rules. 

Well, maybe except for one. Wink wink, nod nod.

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On 10/7/2023 at 1:42 PM, SaltyTiger said:

The man made his very successful in what he does career by following the most corrupt football program ever on a 24/7 basis…..now he is whining.

He's a mouthpiece for UAT. What do you expect?

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On 10/2/2023 at 6:31 PM, gman87 said:

Well, maybe except for one. Wink wink, nod nod.

Well actually the last time I routinely listened to his show, he was broadcasting from Red Mountain in Birmingham and talking ad nauseum about all the legal wrangling between Ronnie Cottrell and the NCAA and Phil Fulmer and Logan Young (RIP to the only man who ever accidentally fell upstairs) and Lynn Lang, etc. I daresay that his incessant coverage of all the crap surrounding the Albert Means/Lack of Instituional Control/Staring Down the Barrel at the Crapstone is what really propelled him to a more prominent, national stage. ESPN sat up and took notice, and made him a featured SEC national commentator more often, leading to his exit from B'ham and entry into ESPN employment contemporaneous with the formation of the SECN. So, yeah, there was definitely a time when PF absolutely covered Bama's illegalities, to his profit of course. Now, since Saban's dominant run, he has just let the winds of the day guide his smarmy rhetoric.

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