Paul Finebaum has spent three years talking to Brian Kelly every Monday during the college football season, but let\u2019s just say he\u2019d rather not do it again.<\/p>\n
Asked at Barrett Media\u2019s Audio Summit<\/a> earlier this month how he reconciles criticizing coaches with putting them on his show every week, his answer started innocuously enough with his now-ESPN colleague, Nick Saban.<\/p>\n Once Saban<\/a> began appearing weekly on The Pat McAfee Show, LSU called Finebaum to ask for the same arrangement for Brian Kelly. Finebaum said yes without fully weighing what that meant, because what it meant was 20 minutes with Brian Kelly, live, every single Monday, for three consecutive years.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I would rather have a colonoscopy on the stage right now without anesthesia,\u201d Finebaum said. \u201cIt\u2019s that painful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Kiffin is the interview Finebaum holds up as the standard instead. Finebaum\u2019s history with Kiffin<\/a> goes back to 2013, when he tore into Kiffin on College GameDay following a loss to Arizona State<\/a>, comparing him to Miley Cyrus and calling him \u201cvery little talent.\u201d Kiffin was fired at USC days later and spent years blaming Finebaum for it, a grudge the two only worked through<\/a> earlier this year, according to a profile in The Athletic<\/a>. It\u2019s against that backdrop that Finebaum now calls Kiffin\u2019s interviews his favorite on the show, not because Kiffin gives him good answers, but because of what happens before he does.<\/p>\n \u201cI like interviews like that, where you literally sit down, and it\u2019s like you\u2019re 16 and your older sister sets you up with the younger brother or sister of a friend,\u201d Finebaum said. \u201cYou sit there, you don\u2019t really know what to say. And eventually, though, Kiffin will say things.\u201d<\/p>\n The larger point, Finebaum said, is that football coaches don\u2019t need reporters the way they used to. They can talk directly to their fan base and skip the interview altogether, and he said that shift doesn\u2019t bother him. It\u2019s changed when he goes after them instead. His real interviews now happen in the spring, when a coach has less to protect, not during the season.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t ever want to talk to the head coach of the Giants in football, or anybody else, in the middle of the season,\u201d Finebaum said, \u201cbecause they were worthless.\u201d<\/p>\n Then again, so was another 20 minutes with Kelly, and he\u2019d already told the room which one he\u2019d pick between that and having a camera snaked through his colon without anesthesia.<\/p>\n \t