Paul Finebaum predicts the aggressiveness of Steve Sarkisian, Lane Kiffin in poaching Alabama players

Paul Finebaum predicted Steve Sarkisian and Lane Kiffin could poach a lot of Alabama players to improve their respective rosters.

With Nick Saban in retirement, Kalen DeBoer has to mold the Crimson Tide in his own way. Isaiah Bond is already gone and committed to Texas.

Now, is the Ole Miss head coach about to do the same thing with some players? Finebaum said just wait, it’s coming.

“There’s no doubt that those two guys who are … I’ll say Lane Kiffin probably knows as much about what’s happening in Alabama right now as Nick Saban and Kalen DeBoer,” Finebaum said on McElroy and Cubelic. “Because that’s just the way Kiffin operates. So I mean, that’s what I would be doing. And it’s one thing to do it if Nick Saban was a coach, they would still try to do it. It’s another thing dealing with somebody who doesn’t really know how nasty it gets.”

This goes for more than just Sarkisian, who’s Texas team is going to the SEC this year, and Kiffin. The SEC as a whole has a chance to make a dent into Alabama and spread the wealth, so to speak.

That’s what happens when you have a landscape altering coaching change.

“But you’ve got a rare opportunity now if you’re an elite SEC coach, to maybe get that one player, maybe maybe two players who can make a difference in one game which might be the difference between winning and losing a national semifinal,” Finebaum said. 

“Isaiah Bond probably could have helped Texas in the closing moments of the game (against Washington). You don’t know, but I think that’s going on. And I know if you guys were the head coaches at those schools, you’d be doing the same thing and you’d be doing it with the most aggressive means possible.”

Speaking at his introductory press conference on Saturday, DeBoer discussed how he plans to manage the expectations that have been created during the Saban era in Tuscaloosa. He’s already deploying a phrase that DeBoer and Co. employed in Washington.

“I’m never going to shy away from it. One of our main slogans, we call it a ‘maxim,’ is: ‘Winners win because that’s what winners do.’ And we’re not going to shy away from winning and the importance of that, but we’re going to focus on the process. We’re going to focus on those things,” DeBoer said.