Paul Finebaum on Larry Fedora’s ‘scary, sad’ CTE comments: ‘He came off utterly stupid’
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While the SEC held its annual Media Days from Atlanta this week, the ACC held its own Media Days event from Charlotte at the same time. The biggest story to come out of the ACC event was the comments made by North Carolina coach Larry Fedora.
If you missed them, the Tar Heel coach questioned football’s impact on CTE and even questioned the future of our country, should football be taken away.
“I don’t think it’s been proven that the game of football causes CTE. We don’t really know that. Are there chances for concussions? Of course. There are collisions. But the game is safer than it’s ever been,” Fedora was quoted as saying at ACC Media Days.
Those comments didn’t go over very well around the country and when SEC coaches were asked about them at SEC Media Days, none of them supported the statements made by the North Carolina coach.
SEC Network host Paul Finebaum went much further, calling out Fedora for his “stupid” take during an appearance on ESPN program “Outside the Lines” on Thursday.
“I don’t understand how you can say this is bad for the country, that’s just plain stupid,” Finebaum said in reaction to Fedora’s comments. “I really have to wonder, as scary and as sad as those comments are Bob, how this university can stand behind someone uttering these type of comments… It’s incomprehensible that you can make those statements in 2018.”
The SEC Network host also suggested parents of North Carolina players may begin to question if their sons should leave Fedora’s program given these comments.
“I’ve known Larry Fedora to be a reasonably — unusually bright guy but he came off utterly stupid here and I think that’s really sad,” he said.
You can view the full clip of Finebaum’s reaction on “Outside the Lines” here:
"I've known Larry Fedora to be an unusually bright guy, but he came off utterly stupid here…" – @finebaum pic.twitter.com/YdxthvbQzd
— Outside the Lines (@OTLonESPN) July 19, 2018
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
