Paul Finebaum's sitcom got in the way of becoming 'besties' with Jim Harbaugh

ESPN host Paul Finebaum might have made peace with occasional verbal sparring partner Jim Harbaugh if not for a deal that prominently featured an actor best known for having relations with a pie onscreen.

The Michigan coach and the host of the SEC Network’s flagship show have had their disagreements over the years, with Finebaum frequently criticizing Harbaugh and Harbaugh tweeting about “Pete Finebaum, the unabashed SEC water carrier.” In an interview Tuesday on Andy Staples On3, Finebaum said he and the coach almost met to make peace — but Hollywood got in the way.

“In the middle of the Harbaugh-Finebaum feud, we almost buried the hatchet,” Finebaum said.

A few years ago, Harbaugh’s brother-in-law Tom Crean was still Georgia’s basketball coach. Crean ran into Finebaum during the SEC spring meetings in Destin and said Finebaum and Harbaugh should talk things out and that Harbaugh was willing to entertain the idea. Crean hoped that Finebaum could travel to Michigan and play in Harbaugh’s group during a golf tournament Harbaugh was hosting in the coming weeks.

There was only one problem. Finebaum couldn’t make it that weekend because he had meetings scheduled in Hollywood. He was on the verge of closing a deal for a series based on his life and radio show. In fact, the project already had a star attached. Jason Biggs, the actor who in 1999 got intimate with an apple pie on a kitchen table in American Pie, was set to play a fictionalized version of Finebaum as he juggled his home life and wacky cast of radio callers.

Finebaum had been working on the project for about two years at the time. He ultimately sold it to ABC, but the pandemic hit and plunged the project into development hell. So after all that, we never got a Finebaum sitcom or a Harbaugh-Finebaum detente.

“If not for that, Jim Harbaugh and I would be besties right now,” Finebaum said.