Paul Finebaum: If not Alabama, Oklahoma will claim national championship

ESPN and SEC Network host Paul Finebaum on Tuesday appeared on Get Up! with Mike Greenberg to discuss Alabama’s dominance, along with why Oklahoma makes a compelling case for the 2022 college football national championship.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Finebaum implied that he believes No. 1 Alabama will claim the national championship, which would be Nick Saban’s sixth since taking over as the Crimson Tide head coach in 2007. In fact, Finebaum thinks it’s reasonable that Saban, 69, wins two more national championships before retiring. Though he is under contract through the 2028 season, it remains unclear whether Saban will retire before then.

“I think it’s reasonable that [Saban] wins two, I just think health is an issue,” Finebaum said. “He’s in great health now, but in five, six years with somebody that age—come on. You are playing with the odds.”

Saban will turn 70 before the national championship game. In the event that he wins the title, he will become the oldest head coach to win it, surpassing Bobby Bowden, who won at age 69.

If Alabama falls short, however, Finebaum didn’t skip a beat when naming his second-favorite championship contender.

“Oklahoma,” he said, when asked who wins it all if not Alabama. “They have one of the two or three best quarterbacks in the country with Spencer Rattler. They really have a better defense than anybody is giving them credit [for]. Alex Grinch is the defensive coordinator. We’ve laughed at their defenses in the past, not anymore. They will surprise you with their defense.”

Rattler, a former five-star recruit and the top quarterback in the 2019 recruiting class, bursted onto the scene in 2020 after succeeding former Sooner quarterback Jalen Hurts. He threw for over 3,000 yards as a redshirt freshman, averaging just over 275 per game, and threw 28 touchdown passes with just seven interceptions. He is currently the odds-on favorite to win the Heisman Trophy.

But it’s not just the quarterbacking and underrated defense that separates Oklahoma, according to Finebaum.

‘They have the thing that you need to win a college football championship: an easy schedule,” he said. “They don’t play anybody. They play Nebraska in a couple weeks, that’s an easy win; they play Texas in the middle of the season, they should win that game. And then they have Iowa State at home, and Oklahoma State on the road and they’ll probably see Iowa State again in the championship game. That is a recipe to get to the playoffs and then you hope for a break in the first round.”

Oklahoma currently has the fourth-best odds to win the national championship, as Alabama is the favorite, followed by Clemson and Ohio State.