Catching up with Paul Finebaum at SEC Media Days in Atlanta

On Day 2 of SEC Media Days, Billy Liucci and David Nuño sat down with SEC Network personality Paul Finebaum to chat about Lane Kiffin's antics, get his thoughts on Mike Elko and share a story about former A&M coach Dennis Franchione.

Key notes from Paul Finebaum interview

• I’m doing great. Any time I can join my hero and role model in life, Billy Liucci, it’s a pleasure.
   
• It’s become a challenge because something weird happens every time Lane Kiffin and I talk. We were together in Destin for Memorial Day. It was incredible, the last interview we did. Yesterday, we were told by the SEC who’s available. The coaches have a certain schedule, and Lane Kiffin was not on the list. So, I never gave it a second thought. We had Clark Lea on. All of a sudden, as Lea is sitting down, I get a text from Kiffin asking why I didn’t invite him. I said because we were told you wouldn’t be available. He said I’ll be there in 15 minutes. They held up. He came out, and it was probably the best interview we’ve had. I think he now knows that he gets a reaction, so he doesn’t want to talk about anything other than the weird, cringeworthy things that social media lives off.
   
• When you do what I do now, you get coaches who will sit down, and it feels like you’re talking to a high school coach. One coach, it took like thirty years for him to speak to me again. That’s Bill Curry. We’re actually friendly now, I think he’s almost 80. There’s one coach who’s never spoken to me again. Dennis Franchione. I’ll tell you the story. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you about it. I’ll clean it up. Anyways, Tommy Tuberville called me one day. He said, “Franchione hasn’t signed his contract at Alabama,” and he told me some stuff he’d heard. He said, “You might want to call him or Gary Patterson.” So I called Patterson. He was pretty coy. Patterson had worked under Franchione.
   
• So I called Franchione. I said, “Coach, great to talk to you.” I’d met him once or twice. I said, “I want to run something by you that I’ve picked up from a couple of people. They said you haven’t signed your contract, and the reason is there’s some scuttlebutt about certain things.” It wasn’t a formal question. I didn’t hear a sound. I waited about thirty seconds. Said “Coach? Coach?” Dialtone. He never spoke to me again, and he still hasn’t. I’ll tell you one thing, but you’ll have to help me. When Oklahoma beat A&M 77-0, it was possibly the happiest day of my life.
   
• I even had a call a year or two ago from his son-in-law, who was doing a book or something. He said I know you know my father-in-law. I go, “Well, not really.”  I have nothing against him. Off the air, I’ll tell you what I asked him. I don’t think it’s fair to Franchione. But he was a weird guy at Alabama. He was always strange.
   
• I think Mike Elko is the smartest coach I’ve dealt with in a long time. He’s a thoughtful guy. He’s always available. None of these things have to do with his coaching ability, but they matter.
   
• A&M feels different now than it has in the past. You hear the word “alignment” all the time, but you have to have it today more than ever before. I have close friends at A&M. Porter Garner is somebody I hold dear. He’s probably taught me more about A&M than any other person. I went out there when they were honoring Gene Stallings, and he took me around and stayed close to me. I learned a lot, not so much about the football program, but what makes A&M unique, and I owe all that to Garner. It pains me to see the struggles of this program over the years.
   
• By the way, I don’t know who is responsible, but whoever blew up the Mark Stoops hiring really deserves a Medal of Honor.
   
• I know there are more important things going on in Texas, but when we move past this strategy, I’m going to talk to people in Austin in the state government. We’re gonna have “Billy Liucci Day” at the state capitol.