Top SEC radio host: Deion Sanders is a bigger star than Nick Saban

SEC Network host Paul Finebaum, who came up the reporting ranks starting out in Birmingham, Alabama, believes Deion Sanders is a bigger star at this point than Crimson Tide head coach and seven-time national champion Nick Saban.

“I had a colleague ask me today, this is where we are on the morning after, who do you think the top three candidates would be if quote unquote, Nick Saban retired,” Finebaum prefaced on the September 11 edition of the Matt Barrie Show (h/t On3) before saying, “And I don’t know if Prime is on that list or not. But why not? And I’m not gonna I’m not gonna get too deep into the weeds or we’re not when I was trying to think of some of the names. I mean, they’re all just nice coaches, but none of them have the star power. I mean, quite frankly, Nick Saban doesn’t have the star power that Deion Sanders has right now.”

Saban’s reign has been questioned the past two years with Georgia winning back-to-back College Football Playoff National Championships; this to go along with missing the CFP entirely for just the second time in 2022. A third missed CFP seems extremely likely now with a 1-1 start for the Crimson Tide. With CU now 2-0, there’s no doubt the Buffs are a much hotter topic than the middle-of-the-SEC 2023 Alabama program.

Nick Saban’s reign over college football ending will be good for Deion Sanders

Ask most analysts about Alabama’s stranglehold on the sport, and you may get a question back: What stranglehold? In the NIL era, the Crimson Tide don’t get every recruit like they used to, and the program is often out-recruited by SEC luminaries like Georgia and Texas A&M. Programs around the country like Ohio State, USC, and Florida State have similarly denied the dominance of the Crimson Tide on the recruiting trail.

With Saban no longer having the pull he used to, the mantle of top recruiter is up for grabs. And given all the blue-chip talent Coach Prime brought to Colorado despite one of its worst seasons in history, it seems likely that Sanders will be right up there with Kirby Smart and Steve Sarkisian for the trail’s new guard.