"Texas has the most famous backup in the sport, Arch Manning": Paul Finebaum weighs in on Alabama & Longhorns' QB depth chart
According to Paul Finebaum, Texas has one of the best quarterback rooms in all of college football. He compared the QB room of the University of Texas with Alabama's, basically stating that if something were to happen to Quinn Ewers, they have a ready and able backup in Arch Manning.
Finebaum doesn't believe that if Jalen Milroe went down, the Crimson Tide could have the same level of confidence in Ty Simpson's abilities. Here's what Paul Finebaum had to say:
“Alabama doesn’t really have an automatic backup. They have good players, Ty Simpson is fantastic, but we don’t know that much about him. But Texas has the most famous backup in the sport, Arch Manning. So if something goes haywire with Quinn Ewers, Texas has a plan. It won’t be the end of the world, it will be at Alabama.”
Alabama did suffer at times last season with their QB room. After Week 2's defeat to Texas last year, Jalen Milroe temporarily lost his job for the game against South Florida.
At the time, neither Tyler Buchner (who in the off-season transferred back to Notre Dame to play lacrosse) nor Ty Simpson proved to be at the level required by Alabama. Ty Simpson only had 73 yards in the Week 3 17-3 victory over South Florida.
Lane Kiffin goes after Paul Finebaum during the SEC Media Days
In a conversation that soon turned into a clash of personalities on Thursday, Lane Kiffin went after Paul Finebaum.
During the SEC Media Days coverage, with the Ole Miss coach on stage, the ESPN analyst mentioned his alleged role in Lane Kiffin's firing from USC in 2013. He stated that if his comments in College GameDay were the cause of Kiffin's firing, it would make the story even better.
It seems like Kiffin had enough and decided to go after Finebaum.
“You really did, because it is a true story that the athletic director and the president were on that trip," Kiffin said at Media Day. "We were playing that night and you were on ‘College GameDay’ and you had to make your big splash.
"They were watching it because I know the other person in the room who was watching it with them. And you said what a joke I was, I’m the ‘Miley Cyrus of college football coaching’ and I should be fired. They looked at each other and later that night, I was fired."
However, things worked out for the coach in the end. Hadn't it been for that incident, he would've never entered Nick Saban's staff as an offensive coordinator at Alabama. Kiffin has often said that the experience improved his coaching abilities.