Paul Finebaum jabs Brian Kelly over difference between Netflix persona, press conferences

Netflix’s new docuseries “SEC Football: Any Given Saturday” takes fans behind the scenes for an in-depth look into nine SEC programs throughout the 2024 college football season. One of the more prominent teams featured is LSU, with fourth-year head coach Brian Kelly representing a central figure throughout several of the seven-episode series.

That includes the series’ first episode — titled “Opening Kickoff” — opening up with a look into how Kelly is still working to instill a championship culture as he enters his third season in Baton Rouge. But, as part of its all-access look into the program, the Neflix cameras also reveal a different, more coarse side of the 63-year-old Kelly that most Tigers fans aren’t privileged to seeing on a regular basis.

In fact, less than five minutes into the openeing episode, Kelly is heard repeatedly dropping multiple f-bombs as he chastised his LSU players for not quite living up to his championship vision during a preseason practice ahead of the highly-anticipated 2024 season-opener vs. USC.

“Listen to me men, I’m going to say it one more f***ing time. If you want to come out here and go half-speed, go ahead. I’m going f***ing in. Is that clear?” Kelly scolded. “If you guys want to go half-speed, let me know now. You’re wasting my time. Get your asses going!”

While cursing and vulgarities are hardly unique to coaching at any level, it was a side of Kelly that caught SEC Network host Paul Finebaum — who also serves as a bit of a narrator throughout the Netflix series — off guard as he recently sat down to watch the full documentary series released last week.

“I’m at a disadvantage because I just started watching it and I saw the Kelly episode. I mean, all I saw was Brian Kelly cursing the first episode that I watched,” Finebaum said Tuesday on the McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning radio show.

Finebaum’s pearl-clutching aside, Kelly and LSU are once again the talk of the college football world ahead of its 2025 season-opener at Clemson in what has been billed as “the Battle of the Death Valleys.” That’s especially true after veteran senior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier suffered a preseason injury scare when he recently left practice with tendinitis in the patella of his knee. Kelly later clarified the situation, downplaying the injury as a “(pissed off) patella tendon.”

“On the scale of 1 to 10, this is like a 1.5, on the scale of 1 to 10. And that’s just being honest with you so we get the right information out there, you know, regarding Nuss,” Kelly said Aug. 8. “It’s not a serious injury. And, it’s like guys dealing with tendinitis virtually every day, in life – take two Aspirins and I’ll call you in the morning, right? This is more precautionary.”

Still, any time a team’s starting quarterback suffers any sort of preseason injury, regardless of the actual severity, it sends shockwaves through the affected fanbase. And for an LSU fanbase eager to return to championship contending status amid a five-year absence from the College Football Playoff, it certainly raises red flags ahead of a pivotal Top 10 season-opener vs. No. 4 Clemson.

For Finebaum, though, Kelly’s comments addressing the Nussmeier situation seem to fly in the face of the intensity shown on the Netflix series. What that means for LSU’s Aug. 30 season-opener is yet to be seen, but it certainly keeps the Tigers and their impassioned head coach in the news cycle.

“I think the problem Brian Kelly has right now is what he says at these news conferences is competing with what people are watching on Netflix,” Finebaum joked. “Which Brian Kelly is talking, the one that was talking before the season or the one that’s talking now that the season is here? And I say that somewhat jokingly, but he definitely is a big conversation piece after this Any Given Saturday (Netflix docuseries) came out.”