Paul Finebaum didn’t have much sympathy for LSU after the Tigers’ Week 6 loss at Kentucky. On The Matt Barrie Show, he pointed to Lexington as the result that brought the most satisfaction to college football fans around the country.
“Of all the games that gave the most joy to people around the country... it was the game in Lexington,” noted Finebaum on The Matt Barrie Show. “Because when [Kentucky coach] Will Stein did what he did, outside of the LSU fan base, every other fan base cheered.”
That reaction lined up with the bigger picture Finebaum laid out after Matt Barrie said he hadn’t seen anything from LSU that made a 10-2 season feel realistic. Finebaum agreed, then highlighted just how far the Tigers have to go.
“And LSU paid $53 million to get rid of a coach who didn't look this bad early on in his tenure,” Finebaum said of former Tiger coach Brian Kelly. He added that Kiffin is now 13-13 on the road in the SEC as a head coach and noted LSU still has Alabama, Texas, and a trip to Tennessee left on the schedule.
Finebaum also wondered aloud whether another loss could push the Tigers toward next year’s planning.
“If they drop another one pretty quickly here, and there are some tough ones, do they just start thinking about next year,” pondered Finebaum.
He called Kiffin “a peculiar and often a mercurial coach,” while also saying he believes the LSU coach is “a very good coach.”
The backdrop to all of this is a messy one. LSU’s move to part ways with Brian Kelly and then bring in Kiffin from Ole Miss came with plenty of noise. Kiffin followed that up with a heavy transfer portal push that helped make LSU one of the biggest spenders in college football.
But after a 4-2 start that included a loss in Oxford to Kiffin’s former team and Saturday’s defeat in Lexington, the coach once again looks like one of the sport’s easiest targets. Kiffin already left Ole Miss with plenty of frustration behind him, and he had done something similar earlier in his career after a one-season stint at Tennessee in 2009.
There’s also the long trail of Kiffin-related baggage that keeps following him around. Reports periodically resurface about his relationship with Nick Saban during his run in Tuscaloosa, and that partnership eventually ended with Saban sending Kiffin packing during the College Football Playoff. More recently, Kiffin was involved in a standoff with the SEC over several NFL training camp players he appeared to have brought in for the LSU roster.
For fans who enjoy seeing a big-spending powerhouse stumble, LSU’s loss in Lexington fit the bill. Finebaum made it clear plenty of people were happy to watch it happen.
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