Paul Finebaum needs to send Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs a major apology
If Paul Finebaum’s daily goal is to generate headlines with his name in it, he’s doing a fine job of accomplishing it.
Not many days go by — not even in mid February, the slowest time of the year for college football — without Finebaum offering up some inflammatory comments about someone associated with college football.
Finebaum, who has devolved into a caricature of a sports media figure in recent years, spends his days mostly trashing various personalities in the sport — the very personalities that make his job possible.
One of Finebaum’s latest rants centered around Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart and his “loyalty” to offensive coordinator Mike Bobo.
(Smart and Bobo were teammates in Athens in the late 1990s.)
“I frankly believe Georgia’s problem is at the offensive coordinator’s position,” said Finebaum on 680 The Fan. “I think Kirby Smart, for as great as I believe he is and I know you guys agree, is being way too loyal to Mike Bobo, and I would get rid of Bobo today.
“That (offense) was the frustrating part of last season and Georgia was good, they just weren’t great. They still did OK, but OK isn’t good enough at Georgia anymore.”
“I think you could walk down Peachtree Street (in Atlanta) and get a better offensive coordinator than Bobo,” added Finebaum.
What in the world are we doing, Paul?
I can understand fans questioning the play calling process — even though there are numerous reasons why the Bulldogs’ offense had some ups-and-downs in 2024 (injuries, poor execution, bad luck, etc) — but suggesting that Georgia could find a better offensive coordinator by walking down the street?
That sounds like something we’d read on a message board.
I’m not sure Finebaum understands the difficulties of calling plays in the SEC. I’m also not sure he understands everything that goes into a successful play call. For starters, the protection has to be great, then the snap has to be clean, and then 11 players have to do their job to near perfection while hoping that the 11 players on the other side of the ball don’t do their job to perfection — while also hoping that the defense doesn’t end up in the perfect play call for whatever the offense called. Additionally, the offensive coordinator has to hope that the quarterback makes the right adjustments at the line of scrimmage based on what he’s seeing on the field.
Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out. Some seasons, the personnel just doesn’t mesh. There is no magic hire that can be made that ensures that every play call will work out. There are no play calls that ensure that the quarterback will make a great throw or that the receivers will catch the ball or that it will be blocked properly. That’s just now how it works when players are competing.
Could Bobo do a better job?
Maybe. I don’t know what plays are being called or how much the head coach (or anyone else on staff) is influencing the process. Unless you’re on that headset or in the meetings during the week, it’s reckless for anyone to say that Bobo should be fired (for the record, Georgia had the No. 5 scoring offense in the nation under Bobo in 2023).
Finebaum’s assertion that you could find a better offensive coordinator walking down the street is an insult to Bobo. It’s just flat out disrespectful. It’s cartoonish behavior from Finebaum. Maybe that’s how people talk on social media, but it’s not how meaningful conversations happen in the real world.
(By the way, Jared Curtis, the top 2026 quarterback in the nation, thinks pretty highly of Bobo.)
Instead of insulting Smart, Bobo, and the Bulldogs, maybe Finebaum can offer up some constructive criticism on the specific problems he sees with Georiga’s play calling process. If Finebaum can’t do that, then I’m not sure why anyone should care (or even pay attention to) what he has to say about Georgia’s offense.
