The margin of Alabama’s win over LSU was widely thought to be lopsided because Alabama was fueled by revenge over last year’s loss to LSU. But Paul Finebaum wondered on Monday morning whether coach Nick Saban took his foot off the gas a little early.

Speaking on his regular appearance on “The Roundtable” on WJOX 94.5 in Birmingham, Alabama, Finebaum wondered if Saban felt something for LSU coach Ed Orgeron.

“I never thought he would take the revenge thing as seriously as he did, but I think at some point, you just start thinking back to a game maybe when you were a kid and you’re playing tennis or golf and you genuinely start to feel sorry for the other person,” Finebaum said. “I think that’s where he was. He’s going, man, ‘Do I win this game by 35, 45, do I really want to win this by 60.’ I think he was ready to move on, he was already thinking about Florida, excuse me, Arkansas.”

Finebaum was then asked whether LSU would fire a coordinator, and Orgeron’s job security moving forward.

“I think it is a program to keep your eyes on very closely and I say that not only because of what happened this year, but some of the off-the-field issues that have popped up down there, and sometimes these things all connect and sometimes they don’t,” Finebaum said. “But people in the industry so to speak are watching it closely because of the Title IX issues that have come out, whether there are more to come out. These things usually open the door for a lot of consternation. That’s just a thought, not necessarily a prediction, and I will say if things had gone great this year, those things perhaps wouldn’t be as important.”

Finebaum then referenced the Auburn basketball program and the Final Four appearance that seemed to overshadow the off-the-court problems for Bruce Pearl.

“That is a very restless crowd in Baton Rouge,” he said. “Not only did they win last year, guys, they were dominant, it was one of the greatest teams ever, maybe the best, you heard the comments from Orgeron, and now they’re all boomeranging right back. This season is a disaster, there’s no sugar coating it, he will have a hard time explaining it. I think he’s done a miserable job of dealing with the public. He oversold the season, for what reason I don’t know. He had to know the limitations and he had to see what was happening with the opt outs. He’ll show up today on Tell the Truth Monday, Tell the Truth Tuesday and he’ll keep saying the same thing. I’ve heard him the same the same thing every week say we’ve got to get better, we’ve got a really good program here, this is not a really good program anymore. I know there are a lot of good recruits and recruiting looks good in two weeks, but this program has got a major hole in the middle of it.”