Paul Finebaum expects a 'competitive' Iron Bowl between Auburn, Alabama

The annual Iron Bowl matchup between Alabama and Auburn is always one of the most highly anticipated rivalry games at the conclusion of the regular season.

But the two rivals couldn’t be more different heading into this year’s matchup, with the Crimson Tide being ranked No. 8 in the country with an undefeated record in the SEC and Auburn coming off of a shockingly disappointing 31-10 loss to New Mexico State.

Despite these circumstances, college football analyst Paul Finebaum still thinks the Iron Bowl will be a close one, which he explained Monday on ‘McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning’.

“I expect it to be competitive, and I feel like we all try to get inside Nick Saban‘s head and most of us fail. But I would imagine he was pretty upset watching the end of the Auburn game,” Finebaum said. “I mean it’s like why does this have to happen to me every time we go down there he must have been saying. I think if Auburn had won he was kind of riding in there, the line was squeezed to 10.5 maybe, and he could stress what happened two years ago.”

Finebaum believes Auburn’s circumstances could cause the Crimson Tide to take the Tigers lightly, with Alabama currently 15-point favorites for Saturday’s game. The 2021 season provided similar circumstances with Alabama being ranked No. 3 in the nation and Auburn sitting at 6-6, a matchup that ended in the Crimson Tide narrowly edging out the Tigers in four overtime thriller.

Saban may be able to remind his team about the last time the Tigers gave them problems, but can he keep them from looking ahead to their highly anticipated SEC Championship matchup with Georgia in two weeks?

“The focus, to me, is already on Georgia. We’re talking about playoffs,” Finebaum said. “It’s just natural that people, and by the way when people talk like this it trickles down to what the players are saying, and I know the Alabama players are unique and they’re in a bubble. But we all know what’s going on and if any of the guys were watching that performance I mean they just saw the effort was so sloppy, they saw the team look so inept, and I think that factors in. I feel like it will be a moderately competitive game as crazy as that sounds.”

The Iron Bowl is typically one of those rivalry games where records are thrown to the side, and it will be interesting to see if that’s the case this Saturday as Auburn and Alabama will face off at 3:30 p.m. in a rivalry game airing on CBS.