With the Ole Miss Rebels on the doorstep of making the College Football Playoff, Lane Kiffin is the hot name in the coaching carousel to be picked up by perhaps a bigger school in the SEC. And it’s hot enough that it drew Stephen A. Smith and Paul Finebaum into a dispute after comments made on ESPN.
Finebaum was a guest on Wednesday’s episode of First Take when Smith started talking about the situation surrounding Kiffin’s future. Kiffin controversially walking out on Ole Miss for a perceived stronger program in the SEC would certainly be par for the course given his career path thus far. And it would instantly become one of the biggest stories in the sport.
And in discussing his future outlook, SAS made an interesting comment about Kiffin’s ceiling at Ole Miss being lower than it would be elsewhere. He cited some Black players who might be hesitant to go to Oxford, Mississippi and would much rather go to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana or Gainesville, Florida and the Gators.
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“I’m going to bring it home, all right,” Smith said. “He’s in Oxford, Mississippi, ok? Let’s get this out the way. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, you all can’t say it. Don’t you dare say it Paul, don’t you say it Doggie, don’t you say it Shae. Leave it to me, I’ll say it. The brothers ain’t trying to come to Oxford, Mississippi for the most part compared to Gainesville or Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Let’s just call it what it is, ok?”
While Paul Finebaum definitely had a skeptical look on his face during Smith’s comments, he did not confront him in the moment on First Take.
Instead, after taking a call from Rhonda from Tennessee later on in the day on The Paul Finebaum Show on SEC Network, he did address it after she brought up how disappointed she was in the comments on First Take. And that’s when the host decided to go in on his ESPN colleague.
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“I realize a lot of you did not see what Stephen A. said, but he clearly made it racial,” Finebaum said. “He clearly said, in his words, ‘the brothers do not want to go to Oxford, Mississippi,’ which has been proven to be completely incorrect. I’ve been to Oxford a million times and I think it’s terribly unfair to bring up echoes of yesteryear, the 60s, and try to portray Oxford as that type of place today. It’s not. The south has changed. You can make your own interpretation, but to dump on Oxford while saying Gainesville and Baton Rouge would be utopia was just baffling to me.”
If we know anything about Stephen A. Smith, it’s that he will respond to anyone in the media who calls him out, especially if it’s a former or current colleague. And this will surely only be made spicier by the fact that both men have fully dipped their toes into the political waters. Smith’s endless political forays are well documented while Finebaum is still mulling over an Alabama Senate run as a Republican.
Stephen A. Smith certainly did open up a much larger conversation when he talked about the racial dynamics of college football in Mississippi. And given the interests of both he and Paul Finebaum, it’s one that will likely be far from over.
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