Cream of the crop? Paul Finebaum makes his pick between Trevor Lawrence and Tua Tagovailoa
By Keith Farner
Published:
This debate will likely rage on all season, especially if they meet again in the College Football Playoff. But who is the best quarterback in college football?
ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum weighed in with his opinion on ESPN’s First Take. It comes down to Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa.
“If you’re trying to determine who the best one is, I don’t think it’s very difficult at all,” Finebaum said. “Trevor Lawrence is one of the best quarterbacks in college I have ever seen. Tua is simply one of the best I have seen in a specific year. I think we got a little bit carried last year by declaring him, some people did, the LeBron James of college football.”
“He’s very good, but he’s injury prone, he’s very accurate, and when he gets hurt, he seems to collapse a little bit. Against the best teams last year, he did not perform very well. Trevor Lawrence, once he got going, remember he was a freshman, he just took over the game and by the end, in the final game of the year, he dominated in a way I have never seen before.”
While Finebaum didn’t dismiss Nick Saban, he admitted that if Dabo Swinney wins another big game in January, he would rule college football. Finebaum said two things Clemson has done to reach the top of the sport is recruit on the level of Alabama, and keep a coaching staff intact.
Comparing the ACC and SEC, Finebaum said Alabama will be “beaten up and bloodied,” by the end of the season while Clemson will look like, “they didn’t have to wash their uniform.”
Finebaum admitted that Georgia is on a similar level as Alabama and Clemson, and has had a double-digit lead on Alabama the previous two seasons. The Bulldogs could easily be in the mix at the end of the season, he said.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
