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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🎙️ Craig Carton is coming back to WFAN for his third tenure with the New York sports radio giant after his run at FS1 came to an end.

📺 There isn’t a Jimmy Sexton led conspiracy at ESPN, but the network does have to address its conflicts of interest in the college football and coaching realms.

🏈 Thanks to reader input, Awful Announcing has ranked the top college football radio booths across the country for the first time.

🏈 ACC Network will hilariously air a replay of Miami’s victory over Notre Dame 13 times to try to help the Hurricanes make their case for the College Football Playoff.

📺 Apple has some encouraging data in the sports streaming department from both MLS and MLB.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

What's next for Paul Finebaum?

After launching speculation over a potential run, Paul Finebaum has announced that he will not pursue a Senate seat representing Alabama.

The revelation came as something of a surprise given just how dramatic and carefully planned Finebaum’s entry into the political realm was. He first announced that he was considering a run in an interview with right-wing radio host and fellow SEC disciple Clay Travis. He talked extensively about how the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk moved him as an “awakening.” And in a nod to a future Republican primary, he made sure to let it be known that he was a faithful Trump voter in spite of some past criticisms.

This was not something that Paul Finebaum ad-libbed on his radio show. It was very orchestrated in going to a conservative outlet and competitor of ESPN to tell his story. Even the ensuing “controversy” about a “ban” at ESPN (also breathlessly covered by Travis) seemed to be way too convenient to fit what would be a beneficial message to primary voters about the deep state infiltrating Bristol.

And then as soon as the political hype around Paul Finebaum began… it subsided just as quickly. He was in his normal slots at ESPN, he kept hosting his radio show and making his appearances across college football coverage on multiple platforms, and he turned down the opportunity to elaborate further on any deliberations around throwing his hat into the political arena. Maybe we should have seen this decision coming once the hysteria from the supposed ban ultimately died down and disappeared.

So where does Paul Finebaum go from here? The obvious answer is that he doesn’t go anywhere. He has a great gig as the voice of the SEC and one of ESPN’s top college football contributors. He has built an incredible following over decades of work in Alabama and has successfully made the transition to be a national figure covering the sport. He’s never shy of an opinion and his words matter a great deal, no matter what side of the Mason-Dixon line you reside.

But when you announce yourself to the political world in the way that Paul Finebaum did, it’s really hard to put that toothpaste back in the tube. And he has a blueprint to follow for how to balance his political and sports interests who also happens to work at ESPN in Stephen A. Smith.

Now that Finebaum has made his political allegiances known, what is to stop him from following in Smith’s footsteps and becoming a cable news contributor or commentator? After all, he was just on CNN this week to talk about the Lane Kiffin drama with Kaitlin Collins, herself a Crimson Tide grad.

We know the passion about SEC basketball doesn’t match SEC football, even though the conference has arguably been better on the hardcourt than the gridiron in recent years. What if Finebaum decided to go on some political tangents in the college football offseason on his radio show in the spirit of keeping things interesting? What if he decided to launch his own political podcast or a separate independent show so that he can freely share his thoughts on immigration raids or the Epstein Files?

It’s something that certainly can’t be out of the question given how successful Smith has been going back and forth between those worlds. Finebaum can also look his bosses at ESPN eye-to-eye and make the argument that if Smith is allowed to do political commentary, then there should be nothing stopping him from doing so as well. In many ways, ESPN’s hands are tied because of the leeway they have given Smith to operate in both arenas at the same time. And if ESPN made any kind of move to stop Finebaum going that route, it would only make his political messaging all the more powerful.

Paul Finebaum may not be running for the United States Senate. But he can still be an influential voice in the political world given his support and notoriety, especially in the south and with conservatives, if he so chooses. And now it’s something ESPN will have to be aware of, however he decides to move forward from here.

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

While this segment is traditionally dedicated to weird, funny, or viral moments, we have to make an exception today because of what happened to New York Giants rookie Abdul Carter.

Carter has had an incredibly disappointing season with the Giants, scoring his first full sack this week on Monday Night Football against the Patriots. And for the second time this season, he was benched for missing a team event, which was met with disapproval from franchise legend and radio analyst Carl Banks.

However, millions on social media thought Carter was benched for watching porn during a team meeting thanks to a troll account going viral with the fake news message. Carter even appeared to react to the rumors in his own post before it was deleted.

While sometimes tweets from “A Darn Schefter” can catch people off-guard on fake news reports about transactions, this one seemed to cross a line where it could do harm to Carter’s reputation beyond the criticism he’s already received for things that are actually real. It’s just one more reminder of how unregulated and unrestricted social media has become in recent times with seemingly nobody interested anymore in stopping the spread of false reports.

🗣️ NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

“I’ve used the third base comment. I’ve said not a leader of men. And my opinion shouldn’t and does not matter to you. However, I will say, I was wrong. And you truly, you beat our a– and you did it with humility.” - Michigan alum Taylor Lewan apologized personally to Ohio State coach Ryan Day on Bussin’ with the Boys.

“This was the first time in my life I saw an older LeBron James who played and looked like his age.” - Chandler Parsons was not impressed with LeBron James stat-padding to keep his 10 point scoring streak alive at 1,297 games.

“Within three days, his comms guy was in my office telling me, ‘We can’t do this. Why would we do this?” - Speaking of LeBron, New Yorker editor David Remnick shared a story about having a profile of James rejected that perfectly encapsulates the way athletes have insulated themselves in the modern media landscape.

"I wish him success, because these guys put a lot into it, and he does too, but I don’t need to hear any more about pouring into young people." - Rece Davis did not echo Nick Saban and Kirk Herbstreit on Lane Kiffin’s controversial departure from Ole Miss for LSU.

️‍️‍🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

The closing argument against preseason rankings

It hasn’t gotten too much attention now that the regular season has come to an end and College Football Playoff positioning has come into focus, but we have to talk one last time about the scourge that is preseason rankings and what it is doing to the sport.

Preseason rankings are something that are completely counter-productive when it comes to figuring out who the best teams are in a sport that still relies entirely on a subjective exercise in the College Football Playoff rankings. Preseason polls set false narratives, false expectations, and make some wins and some losses look better or worse than they really are. They also feed into myth making about programs and conferences instead of letting actual results do the talking.

But most importantly, they far too often end up being just plain wrong. As this post from Josh Pate points out, half of the Top 25 AP preseason poll will end the season unranked.

Those currently unranked teams include #2 Penn State, #4 Clemson, and #9 LSU from the Top 10 of the preseason poll. South Carolina and Florida from the SEC turned out to be paper tigers. As did Illinois from the Big Ten and Arizona State and Kansas State from the Big XII. Many of those teams fired their coaches midway through the season and all of them were big misses in the expectations department.

Do we need a preseason poll to tell us that Texas-Ohio State is going to be a big game to open the season? What would be the harm in letting the sport sort itself out for the first month of the season and then start to rank teams when there is actually tangible information to do so and we’re not just playing a guessing game. And don’t get us started on premature playoff rankings.

If anything, doing away with preseason polls may just make college football a bit more sane and rational. And anything we can do towards that end is much, much needed.