It was the summer of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef, but Paul Finebaum and Lane Kiffin might have come a close second.
The two SEC college football personalities have taken jabs at each other throughout the offseason. However, Kiffin still decided to join Finebaum on the air during SEC Media Days, leading to some interesting moments between the two.
Speaking with Finebaum, Kiffin shared a story about the SEC Network personality roasting him on College GameDay during his time as the head coach for the USC Trojans. Finebaum had called the head coach "the Miley Cyrus of football," claiming that he should be fired.
According to Kiffin, the USC athletic director had seen the segment, and fired the head coach that same night.
“...it is a true story that the athletic director and the president were on that trip, we were playing that night, and you were on ‘College GameDay’ and you had to make your big splash,” Kiffin told Finebaum. “And you said what a joke I was, I was the Miley Cyrus of college football coaching, and I should be fired… later that night I was fired.”
You can watch the full exchange thanks to Awful Announcing's on X.
"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."
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 18, 2024
- Lane Kiffin with a little ribbing of Paul Finebaum. 😂
(H/T @JustOKsport) pic.twitter.com/2QVF62dUk6
Kiffin ended up thanking Finebaum for his firing, saying that he would have never gotten the opportunity to work under Nick Saban with the Alabama Crimson Tide. That experience eventually led Kiffin to get back into head coaching, and now he's back in the SEC as the head coach of the Ole Miss Rebels.
It's been a dream run for Kiffin at Ole Miss. He helped lead the Rebels to their first 11-win season in program history in 2023, and expectations are even higher for 2024. Jaxson Dart returns as the starting quarterback, while the team has loaded up on top-tier talent in the transfer portal with the likes of Walter Nolen and Princely Umanmielen.
Finebaum may not have been a fan of Kiffin, but there's a good chance that he can lead Ole Miss into the College Football Playoff this year.
