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Newsstand: Desmond Howard on Paul Finebaum – 'You can’t take anything he says seriously'

Anthony Broomeby: Anthony Broome12/05/23anthonytbroome
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One of Michigan football’s most outspoken criticals comes in the form of ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum, who takes any opportunity he can to bury head coach Jim Harbaugh and the program. He has long been a critic of U-M, but it has been taken to the next level of late.

Most of it revolves around Harbaugh and Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal, which lit the football world on fire over the last month or so. His ESPN co-worker, former Wolverine star Desmond Howard, has heard enough of it.

Howard joined The Rich Eisen Show earlier this week and called out Finebaum for his critical takes and suggested that he is playing a character instead of sharing his opinion.

“Paul Finebaum is a caricature of a caricature of Paul Finebaum,” Howard said. “That’s what he is right now. You can’t take anything he says seriously. You just can’t. It’s like — they march him out there, they pull the string in his back, and he just starts spewing negative things about Michigan.

“When a person does that repeatedly and you just know his shtick, you can’t take him seriously. You take him for what he is. And that’s how I look at Paul Finebaum.”

Howard has been critical of his ESPN mates over the last few weeks, also taking a shot at reporter Pete Thamel, who has been at the forefront of much of the negative reporting.

“We’ve been doing this 12, 13 weeks. Pete’s always been in the crowd doing his reports. I’m like, ‘What the hell is Pete in the stadium for?’” Howard said on ESPN College GameDay from Ann Arbor last week. “That kind of just threw me off, like put your big boy pants on and do it in the crowd like you normally do it. I was surprised by that. I thought he would be out here.”

Tweets of the day

Michigan quote of the day

“Some people are saying that teams have been able to run a bit on Alabama, but Michigan hasn’t run on just about anybody this year. I can think of one game, Nebraska, where they really moved the ball pretty well on the ground very effectively. Other than that, it was hit or miss. They’re gonna need to dial some stuff up and rely on J.J. McCarthy a little bit more on his feet and to make plays, because if they beat Alabama, he’s gonna be the reason why, in my opinion.”

– TheWolverine.com’s Chris Balas on Michigan’s matchup against Alabama

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