Paul Finebaum would rather have a colonoscopy than interview Brian Kelly

Paul Finebaum has spent three years talking to Brian Kelly every Monday during the college football season, but let’s just say he’d rather not do it again.

Asked at Barrett Media’s Audio Summit 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.

Once Saban 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.

“I think I would rather have a colonoscopy on the stage right now without anesthesia,” Finebaum said. “It’s that painful.”

Kiffin is the interview Finebaum holds up as the standard instead. Finebaum’s history with Kiffin goes back to 2013, when he tore into Kiffin on College GameDay following a loss to Arizona State, comparing him to Miley Cyrus and calling him “very little talent.” Kiffin was fired at USC days later and spent years blaming Finebaum for it, a grudge the two only worked through earlier this year, according to a profile in The Athletic. It’s against that backdrop that Finebaum now calls Kiffin’s interviews his favorite on the show, not because Kiffin gives him good answers, but because of what happens before he does.

“I like interviews like that, where you literally sit down, and it’s like you’re 16 and your older sister sets you up with the younger brother or sister of a friend,” Finebaum said. “You sit there, you don’t really know what to say. And eventually, though, Kiffin will say things.”

The larger point, Finebaum said, is that football coaches don’t 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’t bother him. It’s 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.

“You don’t ever want to talk to the head coach of the Giants in football, or anybody else, in the middle of the season,” Finebaum said, “because they were worthless.”

Then again, so was another 20 minutes with Kelly, and he’d already told the room which one he’d pick between that and having a camera snaked through his colon without anesthesia.