Paul Finebaum previews SEC media days, reveals what he's most looking forward to

SEC Football Media Days are now less than one month away as all of the league’s head coaches and top players will convene in Dallas starting on July 15 to preview the highly anticipated upcoming football season.

From new programs and new head coaches to the upcoming season on the field and off the field topics like NIL and the transfer portal, there will surely be plenty to talk about next month. With that in mind, college football analyst Paul Finebaum recently spoke on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning about what he’s expecting and looking forward to in Dallas.

“What’s interesting Cole is all the conversations we’ve had and even the interludes we’ve had with coaches whether it’s at Regions, or in Destin, or other places until now, it’s all been about things off the field and I sympathize with the audience,” Finebaum said. “There’s only so much of that you can take whether it’s important in your world or not. A month from today it won’t be about anything other than the field and that is really where fans are.”

Not all offseasons are created equally for programs from a media perspective. But there was no shortage of topics to discuss involving the Florida Gators, headlined by a lawsuit involving former commit and current Georgia quarterback Jaden Rashada. As Finebaum now looks forward to speaking on Florida’s upcoming schedule, which many regard as one of the hardest across the entire country, amongst others across the conference.

“So I’m eager to get back with Billy Napier again, we heard from him in Destin three weeks ago, but he was answering questions about lawsuits. Now he’s going to answer questions about what exactly are you going to do to combat a brutal schedule?” Finebaum asked. “One that very few people think you can survive.”

“I think Kalen DeBoer has already answered that question enough times, I think Kirby Smart, [Steve] Sarkisian. What’s Lane Kiffin have to say? For the first time really he’s expected to win. He was expected to win at Southern Cal when he was a preseason number one, but this is a little different situation,” Finebaum explained.

There aren’t many easy schedules in the new look SEC with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma and the removal of divisions. But teams it will surely be fascinating to see how programs like Ole Miss and Auburn that look improved on paper will look when the season comes around compared to the rest of the pack.

“There are a lot of other questions that I think Hugh Freeze has to answer, do you have a more complete team? Can you get over the hump? Brian Kelly, are we forgetting about him or are we rightly not including him in the absolute upper tier? Is it Eli Drinkwitz‘s year?” Finebaum asked.

“I mean there’s endless questions, and as you know, guys, there’s always that surprise. There’s always something you’re not going to have and I think we probably will do the story, although it seems like we already did it in Destin. The fact that Nick Saban won’t be there, although he actually will be there. So I think I think that will solve the problem of where is Nick Saban,” Finebaum concluded.

This year’s SEC Media Days will be the first without Saban as a head coach since 2006, but he will be in attendance as an analyst for SEC Network following his retirement from coaching in January. Adding yet another topic to explore in what could be one of the most intriguing media days to date in college football.