New England isn’t exactly the hotbed for college football that the southeast is. That didn’t stop 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher & Rich from talking about the sport Thursday. Well, actually, they talked about college football fans, and more importantly the fans that call into The Paul Finebaum Show. Toucher & Rich mocked the fans, their education — or lack thereof — and their phone quality during a segment Thursday morning.
“Paul Finebaum is the voice of the southern football fan. He’s on in all the towns that worship at the alter of college football,” Fred Toucher said. “365 days a year, he is there to answer their calls. This weekend, you had a twofer with two SEC schools falling and two of the grandaddy hicks. Alabama — which is the number one hick school — and Tennessee — when relevant — can be very hickish. You’d be surprised how easy the University of Tennessee is to attend if you’re a resident of the state. That goes without saying that the callers to the Finebaum Show are all graduates of these institutions which they root for.”
“I think it’s a requirement before they put you on,” Rich Shertenlieb said.
“They ask you to scan a copy of your diploma before they let you on,” Toucher said.
Shertenlieb then said he and his son were flying to Texas to attend the Longhorns game against TCU. His son was excited for the game because he watches The Paul Finebaum Show and “will get to see these people in first hand”.
“Is the University of Texas the University of Alabama? No, it is not,” he joked. “But it sure as hell is miles away from anything that he has heard in New England. It is a whole different breed. It’s not the Harvard-Yale game.”
Jon Wallach then added he was dumbfounded when a Sports Hub caller compared the tailgating scene at the Harvard-Yale game to that of an SEC game because in the callers eyes “that’s where the lowest of the low are found”.
The show then played a compilation of interesting phone callers from the last week on Finebaum’s show, with the first caller having a noticeable static and clicking sound in the background.
“So this is like some crappy pay phone?,” Shertenlieb asked.
“Paul is so used to people being on rotary numbers that he can sit through that. If he hung on everyone with that bad of a phone, he would be in a whole mess of trouble,” deduced Toucher.
