Jackson State coach Deion Sanders Barbara Gauntt/Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK

Paul Finebaum says Nick Saban would 'lose sleep' over Deion Sanders as Auburn's next coach

Bryan Harsin has only been head coach at Auburn for three games, but it appears as if the vultures are already circling his job.

It makes sense, too. Auburn has National Championship expectations on the regular, but he was 6-7 in his first season with a loss in the Birmingham Bowl. So far in 2022, Harsin has the Tigers at 2-1, but they're coming off a devastating 41-12 home loss to No. 22 Penn State.

That's apparently enough for fans to be sick of Harsin already, and talking on his radio show with a fan, SEC commentator Paul Finebaum thinks there's already a few coaches in the running for the job that Harsin still technically occupies.

One of those potential hires is Deion Sanders, the NFL Hall of Famer and two-time Super Bowl champ who has put Jackson State University on the map since he took the head coaching gig for the JSU Tigers in 2020.

“I'll say this to you — I think it would be a really a historical hire for the SEC and for college football,” Finebaum said of Sanders while talking to a caller (h/t 247Sports). “Of the names that I've heard so far, I mean, the usual suspects — Hugh Freeze, Lane Kiffin — Deion Sanders blows those guys away. I mean, Lane Kiffin has proven he can troll people on Twitter and he's a very good coach. Hugh Freeze has proven that he's a good football coach.

“Neither one of them is going to generate the kind of excitement that Deion Sanders would generate, there's no comparison."

Interestingly enough, Finebaum thinks that Auburn's biggest rival, Nick Saban over with the Alabama Crimson Tide, wouldn't be all that happy with "Coach Prime" recruiting at Auburn and creating hype around the program.

“I'm just giving opinions here. Nobody at Auburn cares what I think or you are saying about who their next football coach would be. But I asked a question to yesterday about Lane Kiffin and how would Nick Saban react to that because Lane Kiffin is always trying to poke the bear. He could live with Lane Kiffin being at Auburn because he's already beaten Lane Kiffin every time he's faced him. But I guarantee you Nick Saban would lose some sleep over ‘Coach Prime’ being at Auburn," Finebaum said.

Sanders currently has Jackson State at 3-0 on the field and competitive on the recruiting trail amongst top teams in the nation. He snagged the top overall recruit in the nation --5-star cornerback Travis Hunter --  as part of his 2022 class.

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