Lane Kiffin makes Paul Finebaum blush, stutter bringing up Miley Cyrus quote, USC firing

Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin was the first guest Monday on "The Paul Finebaum Show."

Kiffin made things awkward quickly as he brought up Finebaum's role in Kiffin being fired by Southern California as its head football coach.

"Let's make sure everybody knows, you still owe me, because you did get me fired at USC that Saturday morning by saying I'm the Miley Cyrus of college football," Kiffin said.

Finebaum started to stutter seemingly caught off guard Kiffin brought that up.

"For those of you who didn't see this, I'm blushing even beyond the normal blush of makeup," Finebaum said. "I said that on 'College Gameday.' It was my first year at ESPN, and coach, I was trying to make a name for myself. And unfortunately, you just happened to be the next victim. I do feel badly about that."

Kiffin, who is entering his second year as the Ole Miss football head coach, was the Southern California football head coach from 2010-13. He was fired five games into the 2013 season.

"Well don't worry, we helped you," Kiffin said. "We gave up 62 points that day, so it wasn't all you."

"Yeah, it wouldn't have hurt if you won the game," Finebaum said. "I didn't make that story up. You were struggling out there. In fact, I may have been pretty prescient predicting your downfall. To continue this soap opera on, I ran into you two weeks later. You were on 'Gameday' in Seattle, Washington, and — I wrote a chapter about this in a book — I thought you were going to kill me."

Kiffin laughed at that.

"That's what some of the people on the set, I think, were worried about that they said," Kiffin said. "But we became good friends. You still have the Tennessee thing deep down in you, too, so I understand. Healing takes time."

Kiffin became the Southern California football head coach after coaching the Tennessee Vols football team for one season in 2009.

Finebaum's full quote from Sept. 28, 2013, he said according to Yahoo, "How did someone like Lane Kiffin ever get these jobs? How did he land the Raiders job? At Tennessee? And particularly the one at SC? People think it’s because of his father, Monte, the great defensive wizard. In some respects, Lane Kiffin is the Miley Cyrus of college football. He has very little talent, but we simply can’t take our eyes off him."

Later that day, Arizona State beat Southern California 62-41 to drop USC to 3-2 overall and 0-2 in the Pac-12. Kiffin was fired at 3 a.m. the following morning at Los Angeles International Airport, according to The New York Times.

Follow Erik Hall on Twitter @HallErik.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Lane Kiffin makes Paul Finebaum blush, stutter bringing up USC firing