Paul Finebaum reacts to 'remarkable' fan turnout from Alabama A-Day
The torch got officially passed on the field inside Bryant-Denny Stadium this weekend as Kalen DeBoer coached his first contest in Tuscaloosa, even if it was only the A-Day Game. Still, it clearly meant a lot to Alabama’s fanbase with a crowd of 72,358 in attendance for the scrimmage.
Paul Finebaum thinks that kind of turnout says a lot about how Crimson Tide fans are feeling. While weather certainly helped and he realizes that it’s not as big of a number as previous years, he says that it speaks to where Alabama is right now, especially with how accessible the trivial game is to watch from home.
“Yeah, I mean it’s enormous,” Finebaum said on Monday on ‘McElroy and Cubelic In The Morning’. “I mean I think you have to look at it individually. I realize you’re there for a specific reason but these are not things that are really that enticing. Spring games are convoluted, as you mentioned. It was a pretty day. It’s a fun thing to take your family – run down there, you can leave whenever you want. But that is an enormous crowd.”
“I know some will say, ‘Well, it’s not the 92,000 that was there in 2009 or ’10,'” said Finebaum. “No, it’s not but, remember, that was coming after a nuclear winter of Alabama Football. This is coming off of a playoff team that was one play away from maybe going and playing for the national championship.”
Again, a total of over 72,000 eludes to what Alabama fans are thinking about the change from Nick Saban to Deboer. However, it’s just that Finebaum also doesn’t want anyone having any large takeaways from a game with only so much to actually take away from.
“I think it’s pretty remarkable. I think fans are in on the new regime,” said Finebaum. “They feel good about it based on what all of us hear every day.”
“As far as trying to delineate what we saw on the field and making sense out of them? How does that compute to a playoff team? It’s not easy to do. I’ve walked out of games like that thinking the team had no chance to win eight games and they played for the national championship,” Finebaum recalled. “I caution everyone. Take whatever you want out of the game. Don’t take too much because it probably doesn’t mean as much as you think it does.”
Any overarching opinions about a 34-28 victory for White over Crimson might be reading too much into things. That attendance number isn’t, though, based on what Finebaum thinks it represents about ‘Bama’s fanbase coming out of the spring.
“As far as the crowd, it was fantastic,” said Finebaum.