Paul Finebaum has strong feelings about Urban Meyer's hall of fame candidacy

My god, did Paul Finebaum harpoon Urban Meyer like a whale... While he didn't flay him in the parking lot of a chop house in front of his entire family, there is no coming back from this in the greatest head coach of his generation debate. Finebaum appeared on The Opening Kickoff With Mark and Lee on WNSP NOW late last week and said that Meyer does not belong in the same sentence as Nick Saban.

It was the final question Finebaum answered during his 15-minute segment, but man, was it a walk-off sailing deep into the night. He was given a hanging breaking ball and put it some 450 feet into the bleachers. Like, well done, sir! It is comments like these why Finebaum is the Saban of sports talk radio on the college football side of things. We all were thinking the same things he said anyway...

When asked about if he could only vote for one coach to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame this year, we all knew Finebaum was going to say Saban, but we did not expect this epic rant.

"Oh, I think that's very easy because one coach has won seven national championships and has been exemplary in everything that he's done and stood for. He's been an example. He's been someone who's a beacon of integrity. And the other one is basically just the worst of everything that's imaginable. He has lied, he has misled. He has quit several different times to spend time with his family."

Meyer did win three national championships and will get in, but man, did he screw everything up.

"I realize Urban Meyer has won three national championships, but beyond that, it's embarrassing for him to even be mentioned in the same sentence as Nick Saban."

Finebaum went about as far as possible without calling Meyer a total clown, but he was so thinking it.

Paul Finebaum eviscerates Urban Meyer in the great Nick Saban debate

Truth be told, Meyer is a College Football Hall of Fame coach, too. Outside of the unmitigated disaster that was his ultra brief tenure leading the Jacksonville Jaguars, Meyer won everywhere he had been in the college profession. He may have won national titles at Florida and Ohio State, but also achieved extraordinary things before that at Utah and Bowling Green. Of course, he always left on bad terms...

Retiring for health reasons on multiple occasions makes him look like a bigger quitter in my eyes than even Marcus Mariota, and that is saying something. Not knowing who Aaron Donald was when he was coaching in Jacksonville was beyond eye-gougingly painful. In a world that is increasingly cringeworthy, Meyer defined the cringe. He honestly found great comfort in there. What a disaster...

You then factor in how seedy of a program he was running at Florida, as well as how toxic things got there in the end at Ohio State, and you have to wonder, will we ever see another coach like this again? I mean, he was incredible in building up a program and then leaving it before the end of a decade. He won three national championships, but everyone outside of Florida and Ohio State sees him as a joke.

Finebaum is absolutely right in that everything Saban did was exemplary and first-class. Oh, everybody else hated playing him when he coached at Alabama and LSU before that. But man, did coaches, players and fans respect him. In an ever-evolving game, Saban embraced new challenges head-on, winning championships into his early 70s. He loved the game, and the game love him back.

As for Meyer, I don't even think we can begin to unpack where he left his integrity at the door during his roller coaster ride of a coaching profession. Yes, he would always win wherever he was at, but he always left great men like Kyle Whittingham, Ryan Day and Doug Pederson to clean up his mess. We will never see another head coach like Saban. To be honest, we will never see another one like Meyer.

Both absolutely belong in the hall of fame, but their first ballot inductions should land very differently.