Lane Kiffin has grown up a bit for the reason that final time he acquired himself right into a hostile scenario.
The final time he discovered himself in some actual sizzling water as a head coach was again in 2021, and he seemingly relished each second. It was his first season as the top coach of the Ole Miss Rebels, and he had returned to face the Tennessee Volunteers for the primary time as an opponent.
Kiffin infamously skipped city on the Vols for the head-coaching job with the USC Trojans after only one 12 months on Rocky Prime, and his return to Neyland Stadium was not a welcome one.
As the sport wound down, Kiffin and his Rebels had been pelted with junk from the stands, and that included a mustard bottle in addition to a golf ball.
Kiffin seemingly liked it.
“They had been chanting like ‘F— Lane Kiffin.’ That truly felt sort of intense and funky,” Kiffin told podcaster Theo Vonn in 2025. “100,000 folks chanting that … After which the coed part was like ‘Hey, final night time, we had been together with your spouse.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s fairly humorous to provide you with these items.’ So it was intense and it stored constructing.”
Lane Kiffin enjoys being the unhealthy man
Kiffin seemingly likes to “play the heel,” so his new feedback to ESPN’s Mark Schlabach about leaving Ole Miss for his new job with the LSU Tigers, proper earlier than the School Soccer Playoff, are a bit surprising in that gentle.
Does he remorse his messy exit from Oxford?
“Yeah, I do,” Kiffin told ESPN on Thursday. “However I feel that is factor that I have a look at life that manner now, as a substitute of claiming, ‘No, I do not. I used to be proper.’ I have a look at issues all the time now, like, how may I’ve performed them higher? Nevertheless it’s additionally simpler whenever you’re additional eliminated. There is no emotion concerned.”
It isn’t that he left, however somewhat, how.
Kiffin led the Rebels to an 11-1 report within the common season, and he apparently spent days combating with Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter to maintain teaching the group within the School Soccer Playoff regardless of publicly having accepted the place at LSU.
Moderately than make it messy and sophisticated, Kiffin needs he had a clear break.
“I want I’d have gone in after I met with Keith and mentioned, ‘I’ve made the choice to go,'” Kiffin defined. “I want I’d have simply mentioned, ‘Hey, I would like to teach the group,’ and he’d say, ‘No.’ And I would say, ‘Hey, OK, I recognize it.’ [I wish I’d] transfer on [and] by no means even mentioned it once more.”
Pete Golding and Lane Kiffin disagree on one factor
Kiffin additionally turned up the temperature between the 2 events by not letting all the assistants who selected to affix him at LSU coach Ole Miss within the CFP.
Talking of assistants, defensive coordinator Pete Golding was promoted to full-time head coach and he led the Rebels to the semifinals, the place they finally misplaced to the Miami Hurricanes.
Golding told ESPN that he has no “ill will” towards Kiffin, although he did not agree with how Kiffin dealt with the workers through the transition from Ole Miss to LSU.
“I do not anticipate Pete Golding to agree with all the pieces I do, nor would I agree with all the pieces he mentioned in press conferences throughout that transition,” Kiffin mentioned. “That is not going to occur. It isn’t my job to do what he needs. It isn’t his job to do what I need.”
So sure, Kiffin modified. However some issues by no means change.
