{"id":315101,"date":"2025-11-26T16:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/315101\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T16:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:41:07","slug":"stephen-a-smith-points-out-hypocrisy-of-paul-finebaum-amid-lane-kiffin-sweepstakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/315101\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith points out hypocrisy of Paul Finebaum amid Lane Kiffin sweepstakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a segment about Ole Miss<\/a> coach Lane Kiffin<\/a> and his potential offers around college football, ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith came down hard on Paul Finebaum for what he viewed as a little bit of hypocrisy. It centered around Kiffin looking at other jobs.<\/p>\n

Finebaum was making the argument on ESPN\u2019s First Take<\/a> that Kiffin has provided his Ole Miss team with a huge distraction as it seeks to make the playoffs. Smith jumped in quickly.<\/p>\n

He saw a parallel. And he wasn\u2019t going to let it slip by.<\/p>\n

\u201cWait a minute. Paul, Paul\u2026 I recall, I\u2019m sorry to bring this up, but I just think it\u2019s necessary to bring up,\u201d Smith told Paul Finebaum. \u201cI can say and most people can\u2019t say this because they don\u2019t venture into the lanes that I venture into and that you might venture into.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recall you saying that you absolutely love working at ESPN. You love being the \u2018Mouth of the South,\u2019 you love the Paul Finebaum Show, you love being on Get Up, you love being on First Take. You do a marvelous job. You\u2019re a very invaluable asset to this company. We love you, Paul. But you sat up there on the airwaves and said, \u2018Hey man, if the opportunity presents itself I might be a Senator. Yeah, I don\u2019t know.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The implication for Paul Finebaum was clear. It\u2019s a little disingenuous to speak about Kiffin\u2019s interest in other jobs in a negative light when Finebaum himself is reportedly exploring potential opportunities in Congress.<\/p>\n

Of course, Kiffin might be under a touch more scrutiny than Finebaum. And, given the sheer amount of reporting done on the topic, it does appear that Kiffin\u2019s dalliance with other job offers has become a distraction of sorts.<\/p>\n

Still, Smith wasn\u2019t going without hammering home his point to Paul Finebaum. He concluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m saying to you is, hey, last time I checked two things can be true,\u201d Smith said. \u201cYou can absolutely, positively love where you are, but you can explore a potentially better opportunity. I don\u2019t consider that a crime. This is America. This is America.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got LSU<\/a>, you\u2019ve got Florida<\/a>. Those are better opportunities, potentially, than Ole Miss. There\u2019s nothing wrong with him entertaining it and seeing what they have to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a segment about Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin and his potential offers around college football, ESPN analyst…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-315101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}