Paul Finebaum reveals what weekly interviews with Brian Kelly were like
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Paul Finebaum won’t miss talking to Brian Kelly every week, because the well-known college football analyst and SEC maven had more than enough of Kelly while he was the head coach at LSU.
Earlier this month, during an appearance at Barrett Media’s Audio Summit, Finebaum didn’t choose his words carefully when discussing what interviewing Kelly was like every Monday during the college football season. Kelly was fired last fall, not even completing his fourth season in Baton Rouge, and he finished his chaotic tenure at LSU with a 34-14 record before finally being shown the door.
Finebaum is sort of thankful for that, too, because when LSU called on Finebaum to interview Kelly on a weekly basis, let’s just say Finebaum grew to loathe the experience. Kelly took the LSU job in 2022 and as far as Finebaum is concerned, it felt like much further back than that, because those weekly Monday interviews took their toll on Finebaum so much that he described his experience with Kelly this way:
“I think I would rather have a colonoscopy on the stage right now without anesthesia. It’s that painful,” Finebaum said about those 20-minute live interviews with Kelly every Monday, for 3 consecutive years that likely seemed like much longer for Finebaum.
Fortunately for Finebaum, he doesn’t have to worry about facing Kelly anymore on those college football season Mondays, because Kelly is long gone from Baton Rouge, with Lane Kiffin in charge now, someone Finebaum actually has fond memories of as an interview subject.
Kelly won’t have the pressure hanging over him this fall of trying to win an SEC title at LSU, but those SEC battles will continue on minus Kelly and that same battle for conference supremacy will be present. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about which teams have the best chance to be holding that SEC trophy in December:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
