Swinney ‘the only person’ who could follow Saban at Bama
SEC Network host Finebaum sees chance some day.
Paul Finebaum has changed his mind. It really could happen.
After one night in a room with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, the SEC Network personality now believes there’s a reasonable chance that the former Alabama football player would return home to coach the Crimson Tide if called upon to replace Nick Saban one day.
It comes as a change of heart for Finebaum, as he, like many in the media, believed that the accomplished Tigers coach would opt to stay at the impressive empire he has built in South Carolina rather than try to follow one of college football’s best coaches of all time at his alma mater.
So what changed? Finebaum saw Swinney in action during the Clemson coach’s induction into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame last weekend.
As the host of the evening, Finebaum witnessed first-hand the raw emotion of the honor and the way Swinney treated the people of Alabama.
During his Monday morning appearance on WJOX’s The RoundTable, Finebaum explained why he no longer considers Swinney-to-Alabama an impossible outcome.
“Who knows when Saban’s day will come, but I’m putting a couple of chips down on the longshot now,” Finebaum told The RoundTable. “It’s no longer off the board. It was off the board, but I just saw it. I felt it. You know? His wife grew up in Alabama. His family is from Alabama. That will be a fascinating gravitational pull when Alabama calls and says ‘OK, Dabo. It’s time to come home.’ I don’t know if it would be as absolute (a no) as I thought it would have been a couple of months ago.”
Finebaum went on to explain that Clemson, which brought a large contingency of Tigers administrators and staff to Swinney’s Alabama Hall of Fame induction, will be doing everything it can to keep him away from Alabama.
“I’m probably going to upset somebody, but it’s Alabama vs. Clemson,” Finebaum said. “It’s no contest if you’re thinking about ‘OK, where do I really want to be longterm?’
And I think because he’s from Alabama I’m going to keep pushing that ball up the hill. And the fact that he’s already won that championship [at Clemson]. I don’t think anybody wants to replace Saban — it’s an impossible task.
“But I will say this, before anyone says it’s impossible to replace Nick Saban, I think the only person who can replace Nick Saban is Dabo Swinney.”
This chatter is sure to stir up the Alabama and Clemson fan bases in late April and early May, but reality must set in at some point. Saban is coming off a national championship victory and has shown no signs of slowing down on the recruiting front. He just placed a host of Crimson Tide players in the NFL and appears ready to keep doing more of the same.