Paul Finebaum says Auburn football ‘won’t be great this year’

Auburn football, meet bulletin board material.

Paul Finebaum, an analyst on ESPN’s SEC Network who has often been accused of having an Alabama football bias due to his Birmingham roots in the business, went ahead and said that Bryan Harsin will have a reasonable leash this year.

“Why is he talking about Harsin’s leash?” Well let me answer you, hypothetical reader:

Mr. Finebaum doesn’t think Auburn football will be winning many games during the upcoming 2021 season (transcript via 247Sports):

"“He’s inherited a pretty average to mediocre situation left behind by Gus Malzahn, he’s been criticized by some but I think Auburn people like him,” Finebaum said. “They won’t be great this year but I think that he will get a reasonable leash.”"

Finebaum isn’t alone in his assessment of the Tigers’ prospects in the first season post-COVID-19 ripping away the glory of the Plains.

The Score says there is nothing to like about Auburn football in 2021. The NY Post was equally bearish on the Tigers, aiming to fade AU on its win total.

Truly, the underdog role is one that this program embraces historically. Given the recent controversy surrounding the team’s inability to reach the same COVID-19 vaccination status of other teams and the incorrect (and idiotic) notion that Harsin doesn’t care about having a competitive advantage, the Tigers have more of a chip on their shoulder than usual.

At least under Gus Malzahn, the team’s 2010 National Championship squad’s offensive coordinator who led the Tigers back to the title game in his first season, there was a feeling of comfortability.

Now, Harsin is an unproven SEC entity making the Power Five jump a season after Alabama had perhaps their greatest team in history.

So of course Finebaum is going to hedge and use all of these facts as justification for saying Auburn football won’t be great.

It doesn’t mean they won’t be.