Hour 3: ‘Overreaction Tuesday’ plus Paul Finebaum on LSU, Florida & Nick Saban

0:00Rich Eisen:Are all batteries the same? That's like asking if all soccer players are the same. Take Messi, the most decorated player ever. Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracell. Is there any other battery with Power Boost ingredients inside? No, just Duracell. Remember, goats only trust goats because they're built different. And Messi only trusts Duracell.

0:31Rich Eisen:This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Hey, everybody. Can't get enough of the Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck. You can find us everywhere.

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1:23Rich Eisen:Now, on with the show.

1:29Rich Eisen:This is the Rich Eisen Show. This game was incredible. From the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Kelsey ties Priest Holmes. Earlier on the show, Fox Sports NFL analyst Mark Schlereth. ESPN MLB columnist Buster Olney. Coming up, host of the Paul Feinbaum Show, Paul Feinbaum. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Hour number three of the Rich Eisen Show is on the air. Buster Olney just left our studio. He's going back to Dodger Stadium where I believe he set up a residency, just like Adele in Las Vegas, right? I thought he was going to take a nap. I mean... That man needs a nap. He autographed his scorecard from last night's game, which literally looks like it was found in the ancient pyramids of Egypt.

2:20Rich Eisen:It's unbelievable. It was a great chat with him. And we also had a great hour one chat with Mark Schlereth of Fox Sports. But let's get to our next guest right now because he's on the air for his own show at the top of the hour on every day from 3 to 7 Eastern time. Paul Feinbaum of the Paul Feinbaum Show. Kind enough to come back here sitting on his set. Good to see you, Paul. How are you, sir? Rich, doing great. Thank you. I'm pleased to have you here. I really just want to pick your brain on what happened with Brian Kelly at LSU. And I give you the floor on filling in why he got bounced this past weekend.

2:58Ultimately, he failed to meet expectations. Have you ever heard that in a firing? Yes. But mostly, he not only lost his locker room, but he lost the entire fan base. And it went so quickly and so dramatically. I mean, they were actually ahead in that game in the second quarter. The third and fourth quarters against Texas A &M, the number three team in the country, were a complete and total disaster. And when the fans start cheering, fire Kelly in the fourth quarter instead of cheering for your team. I think a lot of people took note, namely the governor of Louisiana. Now, Rich, don't be shocked when I tell you the politics and football mix pretty widely in the South.

3:41The governor put out a tweet after the game saying, I don't know why the board of trustees decided to raise ticket prices after watching this game. And that set off a snowball that ended up with Kelly being fired. They're still negotiating his$54 million buyout.

3:57Rich Eisen:Well, can you explain to folks why buyouts for him, James Franklin, others that I'm sure we're not talking about because the coaches aren't in danger of being fired or threatening to leave. Why are buyouts so massively, absurdly large? It's easy to answer. There's the three biggest buyouts in history where Jimbo Fisher at 76 million, Texas A &M, Franklin, and Brian Kelly. I'm not trying to turn this into a final Jeopardy question, but who is Jimmy Sexton is the answer to the question, the agent of all three. and Jimmy Sexton is this agent that started his business with one client, Reggie White.

4:44When he was a manager at the University of Tennessee in the 80s, he moved to Memphis and developed as close to a monopoly, not only pro football coaches, but college coaches, assistant coaches. And these ADs just get taken every time he walks into their office with another client and right now he also represents Lane Kiffin uh so he he he's negotiating with Ole Miss about a new extension for Kiffin even though he just got one while he shops Kiffin around at Florida and LSU and literally any other school that has an opening.

5:18Rich Eisen:So uh let me just take that um and and put a pin in in what you just mentioned about Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss Paul Feinbaum here on the Rich Eisen show an agent is obviously as talented as Jimmy Sexton is one thing but you have to have a willing partner to say absolutely let's put that figure in a contract why do programs agree to that paul well because you you have athletic directors who are good stewards of their program they go to the they go to volleyball games they go to the basketball games but they're no they're no match for a guy who is employed by caa um one of the biggest talent agencies in the world and who's basically saying if you don't sign my guy to this deal i'm taking him somewhere else.

6:02And that AD who looks down at his phone every five seconds to make sure what people are saying about him on social media says, OK, I can get that done. Just like a week ago, Rich, in the Big Ten, you saw Kurt Signetti get this$94 million deal. Now, most reasonable people think, OK, he's done an amazing job. But three or four years from now, just for the sake of argument, if things don't go well at Indiana, they're going to have to buy him out. But at the moment that these coaches get the deals, everybody is in favor of it. So they agree to ridiculous buyouts. And then where you get the buyouts to even go up higher is when you get the extension, when your guy may be going to Penn State or in this case, LSU, and the agent who is always Jimmy Sexton walks in.

6:52And let me correct myself. I actually included Kelly as a Jimmy Sexton client. He is not. he's actually a Trace Armstrong client so I know I misspoke there but the reason why I bring up Sexton is that Sexton started this chain of events with Jimbo Fisher so I'm glad I could before before Jimmy Sexton and Trace Armstrong start calling you and saying I misrepresented

7:16Rich Eisen:them no I know Trace Trey used to be my agent when I was with CAA back in the day I love Trace He's one of the smartest guys in the business, to say the least. And I think he represents what feels to me whenever I'm around him. Everyone else in college football and also professional football at the coaching level. So but back to Lane Kiffin now, why would he leave Ole Miss? Right. And why if you can build, for instance, a program like Signetti in Indiana and you can be one of the 12 to get into a college football playoff from there. and you can be one of the 12 to get into the college football playoff from Ole Miss.

7:54Rich Eisen:Isn't that all you need, Paul, is to get to a spot where you can get into the college football playoff and be competitive enough to get the kids either via portal or the old-fashioned way by sitting in a living room and saying you should come to my school? Paul? Exactly. I don't mean to go back to what I just said a minute ago, but the mistake I made was that Scott Woodward, the athletic director, Rich, at LSU, who fired Kelly was also the athletic director who hired Jimbo Fisher. So a little confusing here with all the buyout. He's Mr. Buyout, right? Like he's setting records. But now to the matter at hand here, right?

8:34Rich Eisen:It's just like things have changed in a way. They have. Lane Kiffin's team is capable of winning the national championship at Ole Miss. but there's something about this allure of other schools for Lane Kiffin. You know him well. He was maybe the youngest head coach ever for Al Davis with the Raiders. He's already been the head coach at Southern Cal, where he was fired on the tarmac 12 years ago. And he just, I don't, while he has turned down a number of jobs to stay in Oxford, which is one of the greatest college towns of all time, Rich. I mean, there's nothing quite like going to a football game at the Grove where the white table costs and the china is more expensive than the buyout sometimes of the coach at the school.

9:25But I just sense that he looks at LSU, he looks at Florida, another opening, and he's just a kid again, and he wants to try something new. So that's why I think most of us look at Lane as somebody who could be a wanderer and could take one of those two jobs.

9:40Rich Eisen:Do you think, Paul Feinbaum, it behooves any of these athletic directors to shoot their shot and call Nick Saban at all? Or that's just really fodder for for stuff like us to talk about, Paul? It's actually a very legitimate question for this reason. Nick Saban was the coach at LSU. He won the national championship there in 2003. And Saban left in 05 to go to the Dolphins. Wayne Huizinga offered him this deal. And in many ways, he always regretted it. While Alabama was where he made his mark, it was only six national championships, there was this gravitational pull about Baton Rouge. His family loved it.

10:21And it probably is the only place that could get a conversation with Nick Saban. So let's go ahead and finish this. What would it take to get Nick Saban to leave the game day set, sitting next to McAfee every Saturday, to go to LSU? you, it would take more than he made at Alabama, which was about 10 or 11 million dollars. But if they came up with a package, Rich, I think you could literally fill in the number. Do I think Saban would think about it for a minute? Yes, I do. There's a lot of risk involved. His name is on the field at Alabama. He's already the greatest coach in college football history.

10:59And he did that at a school that previously had the greatest coach in college football history and Bear Bryant, but he's also a competitor. How many times have you seen this in the NFL where some guy, well, we just saw it in college when Bill Belichick came back. Other coaches have come back out of retirement. Bud Wilkinson in the 70s, I think, was a great Oklahoma coach. He went to coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. It ended badly, as most of these comebacks do. Bill Walsh came back. I think Nick Saban, for an unbelievable amount of money where he said, I just can't turn that down, could possibly, possibly at least engage in a conversation.

11:39And can I ask you to guess the trivia question of the day? Who do you think is Nick Saban's agent? The answer is Jimmy Sexton.

11:49Rich Eisen:All right. Lots of connective tissue. I know about the Saban regretting LSU, and I read about it, I hear about it, I see the posts about it. I look at that and I'm like, sure, he regrets leaving LSU, but I think he regrets that he left him for the Dolphins. He regrets going to the Dolphins maybe more than leaving LSU, where there was a choice between Dante Culpepper and Breeze, and he chose the Culpepper door. You know what I mean? That's the regret if I had to choose any of them. Yeah, and Saban's always blamed that on the sports medicine people who claim that Breeze wasn't going to qualify. But those stories don't matter anymore.

12:28But I mean, I don't think Nick Saban would take it. Nick Saban wouldn't talk to Penn State. He wouldn't talk to Florida. But I think he would talk to LSU at least to see what they have to offer. And by the way, sometimes you can come back and make an offer that even a man who will be 74 years old on Friday night on Halloween might consider. I think it's worth I think it's worth thinking about. And I'm already hearing on our show down here in the South, Alabama fans saying, please tell me it's not true. Don't tell me that Nick Saban's going to LSU.

13:04Rich Eisen:I'm already hearing from the Ohio State fans saying the same thing about Urban maybe showing up in Penn State. You know, like I'm already hearing stuff like that. But what do you think in a few minutes I have left with Paul Feinbaum of the Paul Feinbaum show here on the Rich Eisen show? What do you think about Brian Kelly's future? One of my favorite posts was somebody putting Kelly's face over a surfer dude saying, this is what Kelly would sound like if he went to UCLA. You know, like that was one of my favorite posts I've seen over the last couple days. But what do you think is his future? Because you just plug him in in one of these other spots or the buyout conversations going on right now might preclude that, Paul?

13:42Yeah, so Rich, when you get fired, usually your big name, which he is, you have two choices. You take another job, probably a lesser job, or you go into television. Now, you tell me. You've been in television a long time. Can you see Brian Kelly in television? I can't. I think it would be a bad mix. So I think now that he's going to get that buyout, he would probably consider another job. And I say this. I know Brian Kelly very well. Until this week, he did our show every Monday. It was a regular gig. He's a smart guy. uh he he's analytical uh he just went to the wrong place and he went there after when he went when he was at notre dame he said i'm leaving notre dame to go to baton rouge to win a national championship he never got close and notre dame came very close last year yeah so i guess to

14:34Rich Eisen:finish up um what do you think is the most attractive gig um is it lsu and if if if so then what do you think is second best paul yeah i i think right now with the openings and there'll be more this weekend i can promise you that i think so huh yeah it's la it's lsu uh the history there the tradition i mean three coaches in a row won national championships saban less miles and ed ogeron the last two i mentioned are not going to be in the college football hall of fame uh so you you can win there florida is a is a sleeping giant uh they've had two great coaches spurrier and urban meyer and the last four coaches have been fired there so the expectations there are not nearly as high as Baton Rouge.

15:16I think it's LSU, Florida, and Penn State right now in that order.

15:21Rich Eisen:Paul, thanks for the time. Have a great show, and we'll do this again shortly, if you don't mind. My bad. All the best. Thank you, Rich. I enjoyed it. Now I owe you the back end of the home and home. Thank you. Anytime, Paul. Thanks again. That's Paul Feinbaum, everybody. Check him out on the Paul Feinbaum Show on the Disney family of networks and radio as well. 844-204-RICH, number to dial. Listen, you know what I said about Nick Saban. The guy wins every weekend. He is out of the coaching mix. He is out of the NIL mix. He is out of the portal mix. He is out of the mix of going to high school gyms and beating the bushes.

16:01Rich Eisen:Remember that? He was showing up to basketball courts and basketball arenas to talk to kids who play both sports to say come to Alabama. you know and then he was starting to talk about how the world was changing and remember Jimbo Fisher whose name is now still mentioned whenever a massive buyout is talked about because his is bigger than everyone else's remember he was talking about how Jimbo was buying players and was apologizing for it because Jimbo went nuts at the SEC media day and I think that was the year in which he wound up putting the Christmas tree on his front lawn after he got bounced.

16:43He's out of that mix and he's not out of the mix of college football though.

16:49Rich Eisen:He gets to go to all of these campuses, check out the pageantry, enjoy the love from all of these 18 to 21, 22 year olds that show up to get the shot of winning a, win Pat's money, you know, and and and yeah once a coach always a coach i know that i've been around mariucci who whenever i'm around him it's been a while since i've been around him at a stadium he would put his hands on his knees standing on the sideline go up to the refs and chit chat once a coach always a coach but if you can get that fix by going to the stadiums and going to the games and winning every week on a red hot television show that's enough unless LSU calls him up and says have we got a package for you I don't think it'll happen interesting I don't know either I don't know the man I can only assume he's 74 he's been there he's done that what's he gonna do he's already won the title there it's not like he goes back to try and win something he didn't do there, like the spot for him to go for that.

18:05Rich Eisen:If he really wants to go back to school and do something that he didn't do at the school, it would be Michigan State. I don't think that's what he's going to do. Job's not open at present, but it just makes, he wins every weekend. He is undefeated showing up on college game day. In your eyes. Maybe he doesn't win every weekend in his own eyes. Well, back on October 24th, he was on Pat's show and he said, quote, I want to stay retired. I'm not interested. That is, please someone make me an offer. You know what? And everyone says that too, right? I mean, I didn't even ask Paul about Sark, you know, maybe the next time, because I don't think that story is going away.

18:53Rich Eisen:Everybody thinks Steve Sarkeesian saying, you know, hey, I understand you all have a job to do. whenever a coach or say, you know, looks at the media and says, you guys, you all, but I respect what you do. That's a, with all due respect, he doesn't say with all due respect, you guys stink. He calls you all you guys or you folks paint everybody in the media with this broad brush that we're all trolling for clicks. Every last one of us. That's a another way of saying with all due respect before saying, something completely disrespectful or in the case of a coach track covering track covering right i mean when the penn state job opened and uh matt rules showed up i believe on pat's show wearing all the nebraska stuff and talking about how he loves the job that he's got and all i'm thinking about is my team right now you always hear right now you hear that stuff okay and you're like oh okay you hear the magic words right now because we're all ready for the dotted line if the money's right so yeah you offer Nick Saban more money than than he would expect for a coaching gig maybe he starts reconsidering this I don't see it because again it's not like he doesn't get the fix of going to college football games or the campuses and being and taking in that good stuff and the all the other stuff leave that to deborah leave that like i win every week you know i i don't know i haven't spoken to college game day people i don't know if miss terry um is there every week if they're maybe enjoying that part of their you know years and dotage and whatever, then why the hell would he want to say, oh, I'll go back into this LSU mosh pit, raise my blood pressure, go back into this world that has totally changed.

21:01Rich Eisen:He has the right agent for it, apparently. 844-204-RICH, number to dial overreaction Monday on a Tuesday and your phone calls when we come back.

21:14Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show Podcast.

21:38Rich Eisen:at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent, future stars who are already turning heads at age 14. Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and neither do we. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach. We did it when we made advanced safety standard on every vehicle and engineered EVs with ultra-fast charging capability. Because the future isn't some far-off concept, it's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Rich Eisen here with some advice. If high interest credit card debt is grinding you down, it might be time to call an audible with a SoFi personal loan.

22:15Rich Eisen:It consolidates your debt into one low monthly payment with no fees required. And with as soon as the same day funding, you can make the right play fast. Call an audible on your debt today at SoFi.com slash debt play. Loans originated by SoFi Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891. Fast funds terms apply at SoFi.com slash debt play. back here in the rich eyes and show here on espn radio presented by progressive insurance let's let's dive into that because again jason bateman was with sean hayes last night fox tv cameras showed him uh he's a diehard dodger fan and i'm just wondering like did sean hayes get the invite over will arnett because there's just two seats because will arnett is a blue jay fan and i'm like so it's yankees red sox chris you have the two seats i'm not inviting you of course and i wouldn't expect you to yeah why would you want to invite somebody to your seat your plus one to a playoff game for your team to root against your team that you're there to root for why would you do that that's absurd why would you do that i'm gonna tell you this if my friend had a seat to a world series game or a super bowl or whatever yeah i guess super bowl is different right because it's not your stadium but like yeah if the bears and if the bears and the cowboys are playing at soldier field or whatever the new stadium is to go to you would expect ashton to invite you oh Yeah.

23:52Rich Eisen:No, I wouldn't. And he would. He would? Yes, Rich. There's no one in his life that would have similar rooting interests as he does for this game that he could invite. You would expect the invitation for you to go root for the Cowboys against the Bears in Soldier Field for a do-or-die playoff game. The Bears haven't done a damn thing since Jay Cutler was on a bike, you know, before he started strolling down Rodeo Drive after his knee injury. He would absolutely take me. But this man once rooted for, what, Caleb Haney in a playoff game. Are you going to be caped up, mask everything, Cowboys? You know how long me and this, you know this man, our friendship started with him sitting next to me at a booth at a bar with a Bears hat.

24:39Rich Eisen:And I go, Walder Payton, second best running back ever, huh? And he's like, what are you talking about? That is so not even in the same realm as a championship game. What I'm saying is, yes, we live together. I know his rooting interest. He knows mine. He just texted me five minutes ago. I could call him back and ask him. You need to get him on the horn or text him or whatever. If the Bears played the Cowboys in Soldier Field and you had two tickets to the game, would you take me as your plus one? All right. no way i would never expect you to invite me to a yankee red no and vice versa i wouldn't expect it yeah either ever yankee dodger world series if you took me on the mold remediation tickets you know i would never expect you to oh yeah you know what you come to the game nor would i maybe even want to go with you then it's not because i don't want to spend time with you, I'm rooting against you.

25:43Rich Eisen:Right. What if you put stipulations on it, too? Like, hey, I got an extra ticket. You can come, but you gotta wear a Red Sox hat. That's why I'm not going tonight. Why? My wife and her cousin are going. My wife. My wife, yeah. They're Jays fans, and I was like, you guys have fun. I don't, I'm good. I don't want to sit with you guys. I don't blame you. Yeah. I can't believe you'd expect to be the plus one. I wouldn't expect it, but it would happen. It would happen. And he wouldn't put any like, hey, you can't wear the cape or the mask or anything. Just like, keep it chill. He's not showing up like Nacho Libre, you know?