Paul Finebaum mentions Dan Lanning, Deion Sanders for Texas A&M job

On Sunday, Texas A&M moved on from head coach Jimbo Fisher. With that decision, one of the biggest jobs in college football opened up and several huge names have already been brought up in relation to it.

During Get Up on Monday, Paul Finebaum shared a couple of names that make sense to him, Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning and Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders.

“I think Lanning is probably the best choice but he’s got a tremendous buyout at Oregon too,” Paul Finebaum said. “You’re gonna hear every name in the book, including Deion Sanders. So, we’re gonna come back to that one later.”

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Oregon has notably lost its last two coaches, Willie Taggart and Mario Cristobal to other Power Five jobs. Not wanting that to happen again, the Ducks gave Dan Lanning an extension over the summer with a $20 million buyout. To Paul Finebaum’s point, after paying Jimbo Fisher’s buyout, that’s a lot of money.

Still, it’s easy to see why Texas A&M would be interested in Lanning. He has experience in the SEC, leading Georgia’s defense for the 2021 national championship. In two seasons at Oregon, he has the Ducks as a Playoff contender and has a 19-4 record.

There are also several reasons why Deion Sanders would make sense for Texas A&M. Even with recent struggles, Colorado is significantly better in his first season than it was before he got there. On top of that, he also has deep ties to the state of Texas. Sanders both played there and coached there at the high school level.

Texas A&M will certainly have more candidates to replace Fisher than Finebaum mentioned here. However, it’s interesting to see the early names being tied to one of the SEC’s top jobs.

Paul Finebaum still believes Texas A&M can be ‘elite’ with right coach

Texas A&M has struggled to compete for SEC Championships. However, Paul Finebaum does believe that Texas A&M is capable of being elite with the right coach.

“This is gonna be a domino effect here, a couple of other guys just got fired. Because if you’re at some of these other schools and you’re trying to compete in the SEC and you see a guy that just won by 40 points against your school and he got fired on a Sunday, what does that say about your guy? If you’re in Arkansas, if you’re in Florida, a lot of places where I think there’s a lot of soul searching now,” Finebaum said.

“I think we were talking about A&M, what kind of school it is, I still believe it can be elite, but it has to have the right coach. And Jimbo Fisher was just going to the most expensive store on Fifth Avenue and buying the most expensive clothes and thinking that’s going to get you in the after party at a Taylor Swift concert. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter what kind of car you drove up in, you’re still not getting in.”