The 2023 college football season is already underway, and it starts this Saturday for most teams. No. 4 Alabama football opens at home against Middle Tennessee in just four days, yet Nick Saban still hasn't named a starting quarterback. This has been the question of the summer at every Alabama football press conference. Saban has grown tired of the question and has resorted to some pretty blunt responses on the topic. SEC analyst Paul Finebaum has some resentment for Saban's lack of cooperation with members of the media.

Saban chose not to disclose the Alabama depth chart ahead of Week 1 for the first time in 17 years. He said he thinks an official depth chart creates unnecessary distractions within the program. However, the absence of a depth chart makes the media's job harder, which is the issue Paul Finebaum has.

“What I don’t like, and every time I say this people in Alabama get mad. I don’t like the bullying of the media,” Finebaum said, per theSpun.com. “Don’t bully people 'cause you can. Saban has made a career at Alabama and maybe elsewhere of bullying those who are weaker than him and don’t have the ability, and that’s just not a good look. That is my only complaint about this.”

That's a strange stance to dig in on for a couple of reasons. For one, it's not necessarily clear that Nick Saban knows who Alabama's quarterback will be and is deliberately withholding that knowledge. He likely wants to see his options in a game setting against a weak non-conference opponent before he has to choose who will start against Texas in Week 2.

Second, even if he does know who Alabama's quarterback is, Saban isn't obligated to share that information with the media. His frustration with the media's redundancy is understandable, and if he really doesn't have the answers, it would be ridiculous to fabricate them at the media's behest.

Finally, “bullying” is a bit of a stretch on this topic. Is it nice to have a depth chart for content purposes as a media member? Sure. Is it part of the job to continue asking about it? Sure. Is having a depth chart necessary? No, certainly not. That information will present itself quite soon. In the meantime, generating offseason content is also part of the job!

There are a lot of unanswered questions about Alabama football that fans want clarity on. But demand for answers doesn't mean the answers exist. Finebaum is stirring up unnecessary drama about a question everyone wants the answer to. Suggesting that Saban is “bullying” the media is sort of childish.

Finebaum said Saban made a career out of bullying others. If the “others” are his college football opponents over the past two decades, that's very true. But as a 7x National Champion, Saban does things his own way, and maybe he's onto something.