A day in the life

Scene:  inside the production studio of The Paul Finebaum Show, a camera tracks down a hallway into Finebaum’s office 30 minutes prior to the opening of the day’s show.

Finebaum is relaxing in a chair, reading a dog-eared copy of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, a half-drunk glass of Cognac and a smoldering Cohiba cigar by his side.  He puts down the book, sighs and looks outside his room.

FINEBAUM:  Hey!  Anybody out there?  What have we got planned for the rubes today?

Anonymous smug staffer strolls in, bemused.

ASS:  No worries, boss.  Some of us were banging a few ideas around and came up with this to post on social media while your show is on.

Which programs are under pressure to win the #CFBPlayoff National Championship in 2020? pic.twitter.com/L2RrX7YGDN

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) June 3, 2019

FINEBAUM:  Excellent.  The Mullen pounding has run its course for now.  Getting the Saban and Smart groupies worked up is good timing.  Let ‘er rip.

ASS:  Thought you’d like it, boss.

FINEBAUM:  You still here?  Did I invite you to stay?  And close the door behind you.

ASS:  Er, sorry, boss.

ASS backs out of room, leaving Finebaum to reach for a sip, a drag and his book.  Fin.

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Alex, I’ll take “it’s the money, stupid” for $200.

Really, somebody at ESPN thinks this is a mystery?

Paul @finebaum joins #TWSS to explain why a Sartre-reading intellectual likes getting into the muck with college football callers, his on-air beef with “jock-sniffer” Drake & the call that changed his life. https://t.co/1GBbuhaqQr pic.twitter.com/DsyanGoGJg

— Sarah Spain (@SarahSpain) June 5, 2019

“A Sartre-reading intellectual”?  Oh, blow me.

“I believe it’s the hottest rivalry in the SEC right now…”

If, by “hottest”, PAWWWLLL!!! means “the one I can do the most shit-stirring about”, I agree with him that Georgia-Florida qualifies.

“I think there’s a sense at Florida that they are gaining and literally breathing down Georgia’s neck, that’s been promoted by Dan Mullen, and I’ve heard it,” he said. “Georgia fans are like, ‘are you kidding me?’

“It’s like you’re at the company picnic on July 4 and a fly lands on your barbecue, and you shoo it away — that’s how I think Georgia fans feel about Florida.”

And for that we, including Finebaum, have Dan Mullen to thank.

“I was in Mullen’s office a couple of weeks ago and that’s all he wanted to talk about, he showed me the three (national championship) trophies, asked me the last time Georgia got one, and it was on,” Finebaum told DawgNation. “It reminded me of 20 years ago when Steve Spurrier would try out SEC Media Days material when guys like us would call him to shoot the breeze in May and June.”

“He was just very cocky and arrogant about everything, like last year didn’t happen, and the year before when he was at (Mississippi) State,” Finebaum said, referencing Smart’s domination in the head-to-head meetings with Mullen.

“I don’t know if (Mullen) necessarily believes that they are that close, but he wants his people to believe it, and based on what I hear every day, Florida fans believe it,” Finebaum said.

I have to say it’s certainly been an entertaining offseason for this blogger.  Half the Florida fan base seems to be slitting its collective wrists over the way Kirby has owned Mullen on the recruiting trail, while half appears to be… well, traditional Gator fans.

“They believe because they dominated in the 1990s, Mullen has enabled Florida to believe that they are back.”

It’s gonna be a spicy Cocktail Party this November.

PAWWWLLL!, on karma

And Dan Mullen, of course:

Finebaum, appearing on WJOX 94.5 FM in Alabama, noted how quickly the tables have turned on Mullen this offseason when it pertains to Smart and the Georgia program.

“Losing recruits happens all the time, players get into trouble all the time but I think it’s a little bit of karma flying back at him,” Finebaum said. “I thought Kirby Smart won the day and maybe won the war by just shooing Dan Mullen away the other day like a fly on your sandwich at a Fourth of July picnic.”

… Finebaum went further in on the Florida program under Mullen and revealed that Mullen had been taking some further shots at Georgia when Finebaum went to visit the Florida program.

“He’s been running it for months, frankly, he’s been running it since he was born,” Finebaum joked during the interview. “I was in his office three and a half weeks ago, I heard him running his mouth about Georgia and it caught up to him and now all those people who have been sitting around going, ‘I wonder why he’s doing that?’ are turning on him.”

Hell, he may even be right about that.  That’s a shame.

Now, THIS is how you troll Georgia.

DawgNation grasshoppers, pay attention to Mike Bianchi.  He’s the master.

The fact is I’ve always thought Georgia was the most overrated program in college football and I still do. And the Gator-concocted 14K Day drives that point home even further.

I’ve written it before and I will reiterate it here:

Georgia fans have way too high of an opinion of their program. The Bulldogs have won one national title in the modern era and that came nearly 40 years ago in 1980. And the only reason it happened then is because of two lightning-in-a-bottle twists of fate: The Bulldogs were fortunate enough to sign arguably the greatest player in college football history (see Herschel Walker) and they were lucky enough to take advantage of one of the biggest fluke plays in college football history (see Lindsay Scott’s catch-and-run against Florida during the national-championship season).

I once wrote that without Herschel Walker and Lindsay Scott, Georgia would be closer in history and tradition to South Carolina than it is to Florida. I’ll admit now that’s probably taking it a bit too far and, therefore, I’d like to amend that statement to say this: Without Walker and Scott, Georgia would be closer in history and tradition to Wisconsin than Florida. For most of its history, Georgia has been a good, solid program; just not an elite program.

That’s good trolling.  You can get mad at the editorializing, but the underlying facts are the underlying facts.

Of course, the mark of a master troller is going too far and Bianchi doesn’t disappoint.

Plus, it doesn’t help that Smart may have met his match in Mullen, who turned UF’s program around in one season and is starting to challenge Smart’s superiority on the recruiting trail.

And there’s no higher praise of a good troll than another master of the art’s recognition, which of course followed yesterday like the day follows night.

HOUR 1: Is the Florida/Georgia rivalry the best thing going in the SEC? @BianchiWrites & @SethWEmerson join the show. Plus, your calls! https://t.co/xwbsa4pgjJ

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) May 7, 2019

"Georgia needs to enjoy the superiority they have in the SEC East right now because Dan Mullen is going to quickly turn the tables in that rivalry" – @BianchiWrites pic.twitter.com/vhUx8MVaql

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) May 7, 2019

I hope you DawgNation fellas are taking notes.

*********************************************************************

UPDATE:  If you’ve got the time, you ought to listen to the first hour of yesterday’s Finebaum show, not so much for Bianchi, who just repeats his column, but for what Seth Emerson had to say afterwards.

Trolling a troller

This week on Finebaum:  does Eddie Gran not calling the next Herschel Walker’s number in overtime make him a bad playcaller, or the worst playcaller ever?

Now he’s just trolling us.

Somehow, I think even Phyllis from Mulga knows the correct answer to this one.

Is Benny Snell better than Herschel Walker? #CFB pic.twitter.com/Nlm2aFqHZC

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) October 4, 2018