ESPN's Paul Finebaum Continues to Call Out FSU Football Fans Over Reaction To Playoff Snub

Shots continue to fly between the Seminole fanbase and ESPN personality.

Paul Finebaum of SEC Nation on set before the Alabama, LSU game in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Nov. 9, 2019. Sec Nation / Kirsten Fiscus/Advertiser via Imagn Content Services, LLC

ESPN 'analyst' Paul Finebaum's personality and views toward the world of college football have been polarizing, to say the least, especially when directed at fan bases who disagree with his takes on teams throughout the country.

Florida State fans and their relationship with some ESPN pundits are no strangers to coming to blows with each other throughout the years. The most recent rift between the two has been over Florida State's historic College Football Playoff snub and the rallying cry from most of the network and its affiliates for FSU's exclusion.

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Florida State is set to face off against Georgia Tech in Dublin, Ireland, on August 24, and shots have been flying back and forth between FSU fans and ESPN. In the latest instance of the feud, Finebaum went on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning to double down on his views about the team and the fan base.

"One thing I've determined, even more so than Florida State's team being overvalued, the pettiness of the Florida State fans never ceases to amaze me Every year, I kinda try to decide who has the most thin-skinned, insecure fanbase in the country, and right now, at least going into Week '0' I think it is Florida State. I hope their fans enjoy their trip to Dublin; maybe have a couple of pops of that Irish brew because they need to chill out."

Finebaum would go to needle the fanbase for their outcry over what they, and many other prominent people in the industry, felt was a disservice to the team and the game itself.

"This fanbase, after that pathetic performance last year—the crying and the Twitter attacking on anyone on TV or in the media who dared to go against them—still hasn't recovered, and that was my whole point. I was joking, of course, that they're probably still worn out from all the 'trail of tears' from not making the playoffs. I just found the whole thing laughable," Finebaum continued. “Their quarterback was out, so they didn’t have the same team. Their schedule wasn’t very good. And besides that, they played in the ACC. The argument I never really heard convincingly was that Georgia deserved to be ahead of them. Forget Alabama. They earned their way in, but Georgia was better than Florida State."

“I’m not talking about the 220 to nothing win in the Orange Bowl. I’m just talking about the fact that they were a much better team. I just hope Florida State fans on the trip to Ireland maybe will chill out by the time they come back.”

The comments that Finebaum was referring to were basically regurgitated again on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning.

Whether his phrasing of 'the trail of tears' was intentional or not, it is hard to believe that anyone would think such rhetoric wouldn't continue to stoke the flames of an already enraged fan base, especially given the context of the Seminole tribe and the forced displacement of the Seminoles during the actual Trail of Tears.

Florida State became the first Power 5 team in playoff history to finish with a perfect regular season and win their conference, yet be excluded from the College Football Playoffs. Finebaum isn't doing himself any favors in trying to repair the damaged relationship between the two parties, but the question remains whether the tensions will die down by the season's end. It doesn't look likely if this is how things are starting out.

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