Paul Finebaum sends contradicting message on how Hugh Freeze should build Auburn football roster

Paul Finebaum believes Hugh Freeze needs to build his Auburn football roster through the transfer portal in order to gain credibility.

"I think he needs to continue to be in the portal," Finebaum said. "That's the quickest route to credibility right now."

But when other coaches do just that, he believes they are illegitimate. See: his opinion of how Colorado's Deion Sanders is building his program.

“First of all, he is a celebrity, but he’s not a celebrity as a coach," Finebaum prefaced before saying, "To me, Deion, it’s all about what he did previously, and I think that’s why I give him a lot of credit for calling himself Coach Prime. Because that puts the emphasis on being a coach.

“But listen, he is an industry-created coaching celebrity. What happened last year was generational, but it was mostly forced and created, and it was really in many ways illegitimate.”

There is plenty to criticize about Coach Prime's tenure in Boulder, but Finebaum seemingly attacked all of it. Because of the vagueness, we have to infer that the criticism includes the recruiting portion of it. In his case, Sanders using the portal is part of the forced and created Sanders narrative.

But in Freeze's case, crushing it in the high school ranks doesn't hold similar value.

Paul Finebaum criticized Dabo Swinney for doing the opposite of Deion Sanders, making Hugh Freeze-Auburn football criticism befuddling

What does Finebaum feel about the portal? He doesn't like how Deion used it to the fullest extent, and he's criticized how Dabo Swinney is building his Clemson program: through high school recruiting only.

"It is catching up to him as we speak,” Finebaum said of Swinney's portal usage (h/t McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning). “You know, forget the pundits. I know Clemson fans like to aim their arrows at all of us who pontificate about Dabo. But I’m talking about people who graduated from Clemson, people who are Clemson fans — and I run into a lot of them based on where I live (Charlotte) — and they don’t think Dabo Swinney is going to be there a long time. When I mean a long time, I mean 3-5 years. I think his time is nearly up.”

It all adds up to Finebaum looking to take credit away from a head coach who is dominating in one aspect of recruiting.