The more and more First Take appearances that Paul Finebaum makes, the more and more he starts to sound like Stephen A. Smith.
After ttrading barbs with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo over Lincoln Riley and trashing the University of Colorado, Deion Sanders and everyone associated with the Boulder-based program, the ESPN college football analyst has come to a natural conclusion.
Finebaum is now advocating for Sanders to be the next head coach at USC. After taking aim at “irrelevant” Colorado as it relates to the state of college football as a whole, Finebaum thinks that Sanders, who promised to make the Buffaloes relevant, would be the heir apparent to Riley in what he called a “historic crash and burn” scenario playing out at Southern Cal.
The 68-year-old Finebaum believes that train has already left the station, which is why he’s already talking about replacements for a coach with just 27 games under his belt with the Trojans. To Finebaum, it’s about trajectory, and he doesn’t seem too fond of the current one USC is on.
“I think he’s lost the momentum,” Finebaum explained. “He had that town. Stephen A., you live there a lot of the year; you have to win in L.A., or otherwise, you lose badly. And I think he’s losing badly. And instead of harping on Lincoln Riley, I’ve decided to come up with a solution. I thought about this the other day. OK, maybe he does well, maybe he doesn’t. But the answer is really moving forward. And I believe the answer after this season is Deion Sanders.
“He’s gonna be done with Colorado because, quite frankly, it’s not ‘Prime Time.’ He’s done well, as well as he can, with his son (Shedeur Sanders), Travis Hunter, and all the Stephen A. and Shannon Sharpe appearances. But that’s gonna dry up this year because they’re not gonna be that great.”
So, how would you convince donors to cast aside a coach with a proven track record for one that hasn’t proven anything at the Power Five level in this scenario?
“But you put Prime in Tinseltown, and I think you have one of the great combinations in history,” Finebaum explained. “You just got talking through LeBron. LeBron has owned that town, as many others before him. And I think Deion Sanders, as the coach of Southern Cal, is the answer to the problems.
“Lincoln Riley is a good coach. He’s got a great resume. Deion Sanders just exudes exactly what that community is all about. He takes the recruiting there, which Lincoln had and then lost, but I think he sustains it — especially now. Today, the Big Ten media days are going on with Southern Cal. And can you imagine a year from today, Deion Sanders walks into Big Ten media day? Everybody else, get out of the way.”
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.