Has there ever been a coach so universally disliked as former Notre Dame and LSU head coach Brian Kelly? Most of the time, when a coach is fired, members of the media try to revise his record and make him seem like a better coach than he really was. However, since Brian Kelly was fired by the Bayou Bengals, his peers have been talking about his incredibly goofy Cajun accent from when he first appeared at LSU, but that pales in comparison to what ESPN’s Paul Finebaum had to say about someone he used to interview on the regular.
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 started appearing on Finebaum’s show weekly, LSU asked if he would give the same treatment to their head coach, Brian Kelly.
Finebaum agreed and had the former Notre Dame coach on his show every Monday for 20 minutes for three years. Needless to say, the ESPN analyst is relieved that Kelly won’t be doing that anymore. What’s more, sounds like he would say no if Kelly ever landed another coaching job and wanted to go back to their old agreement.
“I think I would rather have a colonoscopy on the stage right now without anesthesia,” Finebaum said. “It’s that painful.”
Paul Finebaum delivers brutal Brian Kelly takedown after LSU firing
It’s really “without anesthesia” that hammers this home. Anyone who has had a colonoscopy knows that they’re fairly innocuous. Because patients are put to sleep while the doctors do the deed. Being awake while they shoved a tube with a camera into someone’s body doesn’t sound remotely enjoyable. And yet, the analyst would pick that without pause over ever interviewing Brian Kelly again.
It’s an incredible piling on of a man who was once considered one of the best head coaches in the business. When he took Cincinnati to new heights and then jumped to Notre Dame, he took the Irish to heights they hadn’t seen since Lou Holtz. Of course, he also began to get a reputation as someone who was not lovable or fun.
He took that reputation to LSU, made a fool of himself (on a weekly basis in 2025), and apparently bothered the people who had to talk to him one-on-one so much that they would rather go through an invasive medical procedure than do it again.
Knowing all that, it’s crazy that CBS is putting Brian Kelly in front of television cameras as an analyst this coming season. However, considering the conferences he’s analyzing tend to be the ones that don’t get a ton of viewers, maybe even the people making that decision know deep down that listening to the former Notre Dame coach is painful.
For Brian Kelly, it's incredible that he keeps putting himself out there and giving people like Paul Finebaum the chance to keep taking shots at him. The ex-Notre Dame football coach is a multi-millionaire; he could retire and keep at least some of his self-respect intact. At this point, it’s hard to believe anything other than that he’s a glutton for punishment.
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