Paul Finebaum is not a big fan of Kalen DeBoer as the head coach at Alabama. While he won't argue that DeBoer is a good coach, he's been questioning the fit of DeBoer in Tuscaloosa since Greg Byrne made the decision to tap him as Nick Saban's successor.
Anyone who has followed Finebaum for any amount of time knows he's a pot-stirrer by trade. That's what allowed him to land the platform he currently has on ESPN. He had plenty of early criticism for Nick Saban, too, until Saban started winning national titles year after year.
That's what it'll take for DeBoer, too. It doesn't have to be multiple. But he does have to win a title to be remembered fondly by Alabama fans and to get Finebaum to stop yapping about him.
Finebaum is betting against that ever happening. When asked on Crain & Cone whether he was buying or selling DeBoer winning a title at Alabama, Finebaum said he would sell it.
His reasoning was all due to the perceived fit, or lack thereof, of DeBoer in Tuscaloosa. I won't bore you with the full monologue. You can follow this link to hear it for yourself. But he did make one point that I found especially interesting for its lack of clarity. He intentionally made it sound worse than it actually is when you break it down:
"Alabama is unique. Really, in the last 60 years, only three people have won national championships at Alabama," Finebaum said. "Two of them happened to be the greatest of all time on the day they retired. The other one looked just like the guy who retired in 1982, and that's Gene Stallings."
Paul Finebaum misrepresents Alabama history in Kalen DeBoer takedown
Casual fans will hear that take about "only" three coaches winning the title in the last 60 years of Alabama football and think that proves Finebaum's point. It doesn't.
Alabama had two really long-term coaches during that length of time. Bear Bryant was the head coach for 25 years. Nick Saban was in charge for 17. Add in Stallings' seven seasons on the sideline, and you're a year shy of five full decades.
So it's intentionally misleading to say "only" three coaches have won titles in the last 60 years at Alabama, considering the majority of those 60 seasons were coached by those three coaches.
How many schools have had more than three title-winning coaches over the last 60 years? There are Ohio State (Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer, and Ryan Day) and Miami (Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson, and Larry Coker). That's it. End of list.
So setting that up as some kinda "gotcha" moment falls flat when you actually take the time to do the research.
Will DeBoer win a national title at Alabama? Nobody knows. He's certainly capable of doing so, and he has the resources at his disposal to do it here. But there are a lot of factors that go into it, most of which matter a whole lot more than fit and history.
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