Ad Disclosure
Paul Finebaum isn’t one to hold back, especially when it comes to Alabama football.
So, after the 7th-ranked Crimson Tide nearly lost at home to South Carolina on Saturday, the ESPN college football analyst had some scathing words for Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer and his program in general.
During his weekly Sunday morning appearance on “The Matt Barrie Show,” Finebaum took the Crimson Tide to task for an uneven — to say the least — performance in a 27-25 victory over the Gamecocks that narrowly kept Alabama from losing 2 in a row.
After allowing a touchdown pass with 43 seconds left, the Crimson Tide looked like they had finally survived a shaky Saturday when South Carolina’s 2-point conversion pass failed. But Alabama’s Saturday wasn’t over. The Gamecocks recovered an onside kick at the Crimson Tide 49-yad line, and suddenly a winning field goal was totally possible.
Alabama escaped the game when Domani Jackson finally put things to rest with an interception, but the Crimson Tide didn’t escape Finebaum’s day-after rant.
“That game was so costly to Alabama,” Finebaum said. “Because it showed that all the predictable things that we said [after the Vanderbilt loss], Nick Saban on down, didn’t come true. Nothing changed. That team was worse. That team is on the brink. Kalen DeBoer’s smile is finally wearing very thin with the Tide faithful. They don’t see the coach they thought they saw two weeks ago.”
Finebaum didn’t stop at DeBoer’s smile though.
“They see someone who comes off weak, who comes off as a player’s ‘slap you on the back’ type of coach that doesn’t really appeal to what Alabama football is built on,” said Finebaum. “I think Kalen DeBoer’s season is definitely on the brink this weekend.”
And this weekend, this Saturday, comes a visit to Knoxville, where Alabama will try to get things right once again when it squares off with rival Tennessee.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
