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You wouldn’t know it, but Lane Kiffin and Paul Finebaum actually have a solid relationship. Kiffin will text Finebaum about non-football things, even on the 4th of July. Those conversations aren’t always made for TV.
You could say the same thing about the awkward exchange that Kiffin and Finebaum shared on SEC Network at SEC Media Days.
Kiffin mentioned how Finebaum’s criticism of him at USC — Finebaum called Kiffin the Miley Cyrus of college football — played a part in his firing. That turned into Kiffin pointing out how Finebaum’s predictions haven’t aged particularly well.
“Really, I don’t know what you’re good at,” was a confrontational comment if there ever was one.
“Really, I don’t know what you’re good at. You predicted Coach Saban was done — that didn’t happen. You basically said Miley Cyrus stinks, and she’s still going.”
– Lane Kiffin with a little ribbing of Paul Finebaum.
(H/T @JustOKsport) pic.twitter.com/2QVF62dUk6
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 18, 2024
Finebaum isn’t good at predicting things. Fortunately for him, his multi-million dollar salary doesn’t depend on him getting predictions right.
What Finebaum is good at is 2-fold. For starters, he’ll criticize anyone. Outsiders view Finebaum as an SEC homer, but SEC fans all think he hates their head coach. Finebaum will have confrontational situations like that on air, even if it’s someone that he was chatting with away from football a couple weeks earlier … like he was with Kiffin.
Is anyone off-limits? Not really. He’s gotten into it with Nick Saban. And while Finebaum doesn’t go after coaches on his show as much as some might realize — that’s callers and guests the vast majority of the time — he does that during his ESPN hits on SportsCenter, First Take or College Football Live. Finebaum doesn’t care about hurting feelings. That makes for more entertaining television.
If you think that’s easy, try it in your line of work and see how it goes. Better yet, try it when you’ve got millions of people with access to the things you say and see if you’re actually willing to put yourself out there. In a sport with an 8-month offseason, yeah, talkin’ season matters, especially in the SEC. That’s why the late SEC commissioner Mike Slive overruled all 14 SEC athletic directors who didn’t want Finebaum to have a 4-hour show on SEC Network out of fear that the longtime radio host would be too critical on a conference network.
No matter what time of year it is, nobody is sitting on pins and needles waiting for a Finebaum prediction because they believe he’ll be right. They’re waiting on pins and needles so they can shove it back at Finebaum when he’s wrong.
Case in point, the Jim Harbaugh mea culpa. For years, Finebaum was out on the Michigan coach. He doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on the take that he’d never lead Michigan to the promised land (Harbaugh trolled him by calling him “Pete” Finebaum).
But when Michigan won a national title, Finebaum was there to admit how historically wrong he was:
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been more wrong about anything in my entire life.”
Paul Finebaum offers a mea culpa on his Jim Harbaugh takes over the years. pic.twitter.com/PGuOPlhbgt
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 9, 2024
For those who say, “there’s no accountability for anyone making wrong predictions,” that’s only half true. So many people can’t admit they’re wrong about anything. Even admitting that you left the light on and not your significant other is a challenge for plenty of us. Now imagine waking up the day after the national championship knowing that you’re about to look into an ESPN camera and admit that you were more wrong about something than you’ve ever been in your entire life.
That’s a skill. It really is. It’s exactly what he was doing in that awkward exchange with Kiffin. If Finebaum had never put himself out there a decade ago, that viral exchange would have never made the rounds.
But Finebaum’s best skill is something that any media member who has shared a desk with him can attest to — he’s always in control.
The way an appearance with Finebaum usually works is one of his producers will let you know before going on what topic piqued their interest to discuss on air. Sometimes that topic dominates the segment, other times you don’t get a single question about it. Sometimes he leads you into staying on schedule, another time you’re spending half the time talking about why it didn’t work out with your high school girlfriend.
(True story, the latter happened to me on several occasions. My high school girlfriend actually heard about those exchanges, watched them and sent me an extremely generous text about it. That’s the power of Finebaum.)
It’s why Finebaum’s callers — love ’em or hate ’em — are as wide-ranging as it gets. That’s not news. When you’re on air for 20 hours per week, you had better be willing to go to some strange places, or else you’ll just repeat the same opinions throughout talkin’ season.
Plenty of people reading this or commenting on this will say “none of that matters because Finebaum isn’t relevant and Kiffin is right.”
The irony is that Kiffin himself has faced similar criticism in his profession as the guy who’s all talk and no substance. Before last season, he had 1 career victory against a Power 5 team that won at least 9 regular season games. It was back in 2011 when he led USC to an upset of No. 4 Oregon. Less than 2 years later, Finebaum called for Kiffin’s job and made the Miley Cyrus comp. Kiffin admitted that his USC bosses watched that and that Finebaum’s words helped get him fired.
Call me crazy, but that sounds relevant to me.
Finebaum’s ability to speak clearly and critically will always be an asset to ESPN. If you think he’s just the SEC version of a talking head like Skip Bayless or Stephen A. Smith, you’re discounting how well he can converse with guests on his show, which can range from interrupting them to making a specific point or leaving an open-ended question out there for them to chew on.
Whether Kiffin admits it publicly or not, there’s a reason he communicates with Finebaum off-camera. It’s because there’s at least some sort of mutual respect for what one another does. Maybe it makes for better television to be more confrontational when the cameras are rolling. Perhaps they both just enjoy having fun at each other’s expense.
Whatever the case, they’re pretty good at it.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
