To quote Lane Kiffin himself, coaching LSU is “just different.” One never would’ve thought that leaving the Ole Miss Rebels behind for the LSU Tigers would be in Kiffin’s future.
But then again, he’s no stranger to switching up, as he did in 2010 when he abandoned Tennessee for USC after just one season. At USC, Kiffin had a successful run until he was fired in 2013 after the harrowing defeat against Arizona State. Needless to say, part of what contributed to Kiffin’s great success was his refusal to settle for mediocrity and his commitment to always finding the next best career move. And this time, he’s found it in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Before Kiffin’s exit, Ole Miss was having a great season. On September 27, the Rebels beat LSU 24-19, and on October 25, they celebrated a massive win against Oklahoma, bringing them closer to the College Football Playoffs. Later during the season, after a 49-25 loss to Texas A&M, LSU fired its head coach, Brian Kelly. At this point, it was rumored that Kiffin would be leaving Ole Miss for either USC or Florida, which had fired head coach Billy Napier earlier that month. Then, on November 15, Ole Miss beat UF 34-24.
After the game, when asked about his future plans, Kiffin shared, “Today was awesome. I don’t talk about that stuff. Really, to even talk about it right now would be disrespectful to our players and to how well they played today. So, you know, we got a lot of things going here, doing really well. And I love it here.”
On November 16, just one day after that quote, Kiffin and his family visited UF, and on November 17, they traveled to Louisiana, making it clear that big changes were in the works. On November 21, Keith Carter, Ole Miss’s athletic director, announced, “This team is on the cusp of an unprecedented season, and it’s imperative they feel the support of the Ole Miss family in the week ahead. An announcement on Coach Kiffin’s future is expected the Saturday following the game,” following his meeting with Kiffin and Chancellor Glen Boyce.
On November 22, Brandon Marcello of CBS reported that LSU offered Kiffin up to $98 million for seven years. It was later reported that he will earn $13 million annually, $4 million more than what he was earning at Ole Miss. He went from being the eleventh-highest-paid coach in College Football to the second, just behind Kirby Smart of Georgia. Additionally, Kiffin received $250,000 after Ole Miss’s win against Tulane and $500,000 for the win against Georgia.
A month before CBS’s report, Kiffin was on “The Pat McAfee Show,” where he shared that he was not “going to make a decision off of money, nor do I care about it.” While it’s unclear if he was completely honest, what is clear is that Kiffin was determined to win his first championship as head coach and believed that LSU would bring him closer to doing so. He liked that LSU had a great recruiting base and he wanted to follow in the footsteps of Nick Saban and Pete Carroll.
On November 28, Ole Miss won the Egg Bowl 38-19 against Mississippi State, with fans eagerly anticipating Kiffin’s decision. Afterwards, Kiffin met with Ole Miss administrators to see if he could continue coaching the Rebels into their postseason even though he was leaving, but the administration refused. Thus, on November 30 at 2:03 PM, Kiffin shared the following statement to X:
Source: Lane Kiffin via X.
That same day, Ole Miss announced that Pete Golding, its defensive coordinator, would be promoted to head coach.
Since Kiffin’s switch, LSU has landed the No. 1 Transfer Portal Class in the country. Kiffin also completely revamped the team’s roster by adding 42 new players, including quarterback Sam Leavitt, Jordan Seaton and edge Princewill Umanmielen. Kiffin regularly made annual top portal class signings at Ole Miss, so it makes sense that he’s doing the same at LSU.
Luca Grossberg (Form IV) thinks that “Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss was kind of crazy, but he’ll lead LSU to success.” And Kiffin is confident that he will do so, sharing, “it’s time for LSU to take its place back as the best program in all of college football. … I’m uniquely prepared at 50 years old for this job to have been so many places, done good things, made a lot of mistakes and made them really early on.” It’ll be interesting to see what’s in store for Kiffin and the Tigers this season.
