By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LSU football coach Lane Kiffin – at least publicly – finally appeared to be moving on from Ole Miss on a “Pardon My Take” Podcast on Wednesday.
Ole Miss people may not move on from Kiffin for years, but they are the jilted ones – not Kiffin, which he often seemingly has failed to realize.
But he did say on “Pardon My Take” that he should have exited Ole Miss a tad differently than he did when asked that question on the show.
“Yeah, I think I would’ve come in and said, ‘I’m leaving. I’m very appreciative of everything,'” he said instead of trying to explain to and convince Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter and others that he should be able to coach Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff. He did have a good argument since he got the Rebels there in one of their greatest seasons ever before taking the LSU job after the regular season. And he had served Ole Miss for six seasons and one of the best five-year runs in the history of the program. But no one wanted to listen. They couldn’t get past the fact that he was leaving Ole Miss for hated LSU.
And please remember, two other coaches who got new jobs last season did exactly what Kiffin wanted to do. Jon Sumrall kept coaching Tulane in the playoffs after getting the Florida job before losing to Ole Miss and new coach Pete Golding in the first round. And Bob Chesney kept coaching James Madison in the playoffs after taking the UCLA job before also losing in the first round.
Now, neither Sumrall nor Chesney left a school for that school’s blood and border rival in the same conference that it has an inferiority complex about like Kiffin did in going from Ole Miss to its, historically speaking Daddy, LSU. But it wasn’t like Kiffin was asking to do something completely crazy.
“I spent a lot of time fighting to coach the team, trying to keep everything together,” Kiffin said regretfully. But in that, he showed how much he cared for his Ole Miss team and what it could have done for itself and for him, which was win a national championship. And don’t believe the Golding fantasy. Ole Miss’ best chance to win the national title last season was with Kiffin remaining as head coach while moonlighting as LSU’s coach. Golding did a great job getting the Rebels to the semifinals, but he was a rookie head coach given the keys to an 11-1 DeLorean.
“Totally respect their decision and the athletic director for that not to happen,” Kiffin said. “I get it. But I was trying so hard to keep that together. Like, ‘Hey, let us all coach. Let’s see if we can go win the whole thing.'”
Kiffin looks at it with more balance now, which represents growth and maturity – two things he has struggled with in the past, like many of us.
“But all that stuff, that all speaks to the SEC,” he said of Ole Miss’ angry reaction to his departure. And that anger and bitterness and strange behavior would have happened regardless of how Kiffin exited. All fan bases think they own a coach and can’t seem to understand why anyone would want to leave their precious school.
“Where else does that happen that the people that for six years loved you, wanted to build you a statue, chanted for you at the last game to stay, and then they hate you like that?” Kiffin said wisely. “And then after a 45-minute flight, the people here (at LSU) that were yelling at me and hated me and saying everything I did was horrible were saying, ‘We love you.’ That’s also the beauty of the SEC.”
USA TODAY: HATE RUNS DEEP BETWEEN LSU AND ALABAMA
And what’s amazing is how people forget that nearly the exact same thing that happened to Ole Miss last year happened to LSU at the end of the 2004 season when Kiffin was a 29-year-old pass game coordinator at USC.
During an LSU basketball game in December of 2004, Miami Dolphins beat writer Joe Schad called me and told me that he thought the Dolphins would soon be hiring then-LSU football coach Nick Saban, who won the national championship the previous season. LSU hadn’t won one of those since 1958 under Paul Dietzel, much like Ole Miss hadn’t won like it did under Kiffin since the early 1960s under Johnny Vaught.
I asked two LSU athletic department members about Saban and the Dolphins at the basketball game, and each laughed it off. Because each went to LSU and had worked at LSU for most of their professional lives and couldn’t understand why anyone – including Saban from West Virginia with no ties to Louisiana before he arrived at LSU – would want to leave LSU. That’s how these people think.
And Saban soon left after coaching his team through the bowl. LSU people act like they don’t remember this. And yes, Saban was not going to a blood rival, border school (but hold on). Still there was a lot of hate for Saban as the Dolphins story became real. How could he do this? How could he leave LSU? Why would he want to leave LSU?
“He’s just chasing the money,” a former LSU sports information department assistant said.
“He’s a snake in the grass,” an LSU fan said.
ALABAMA HAS BEEN TRICKING MORE THAN TREATING LSU UNDER NICK SATAN FOR SO LONG
Funny these same LSU people thought nothing of Saban bolting from Michigan State after the 1999 season for their precious school. That was OK.
Saban wasn’t a snake-in-the-grass job jumper chasing the money. He was an American, and that’s what we do. We take new, upwardly mobile jobs that pay more when we can. And he did make a lot more money going to the Dolphins as Kiffin did coming to LSU. But each thought they were going to better jobs. At the time, Saban’s goal had always been to be an NFL head coach, like his buddy Bill Belichick.
Then he soon realized he liked coaching the college game better and was better at it.
So he took the Alabama job after two seasons in Miami, and Baton Rouge burned just as hot as Oxford, believe me. In January of 2007, Saban did exactly what Kiffin did in November of 2025. He went to a blood rival that his old school has long had an inferiority complex about. Alabama has historically been LSU’s daddy as LSU has historically been Ole Miss’ daddy.
Two years removed, yes, but you wouldn’t have known that talking to LSU fans when Saban left Miami for Alabama. Those two years were erased in an instant.
“He’s going to leave Alabama after a few years, too,” a jilted Tiger Athletic Foundation member proclaimed.
Saban stayed at Alabama for 17 years and retired following the 2023 season after winning six more national championships and going 13-5 against LSU, including a 21-0 win over the Tigers in New Orleans in the national championship game on Jan. 9, 2012. And he recruited Louisiana players to Tuscaloosa like no one before or since.
And as soon as Saban took the Alabama job in January of 2007, Nov. 8, 2008, was circled with blood – Alabama at LSU – just like Sept. 19, 2026, has been circled with blood – LSU at Ole Miss.
Saban was hung in effigy the night before that game. His wife Terry Saban worried about security. The entire city of Baton Rouge basically hyperventilated over the week before that game, then during and after a 27-21 Alabama win in overtime. Just like it’s going to be this year in Oxford. Only Ole Miss fans are already hyperventilating like it’s game week because of some ill-advised comments by Kiffin about Ole Miss in a recent Vanity Fair article.
The difference is Nick Saban has NEVER said anything bad about LSU or Louisiana in any interview he has ever done since leaving LSU more than 21 years ago. He never mentioned the racism he faced from white people while LSU’s coach. He did refer jokingly to LSU fans as Coon Asses once, but he – like many people, including natives – considered a Coonass a synonym to a Cajun. And that was about it.
Saban for the duration of his time at Alabama, including in the early years when he felt the hate, said nothing but how great a time he had at LSU. It was LSU that turned his career around. At Michigan State, he had one good year after four average ones.
Just like how Ole Miss turned around Kiffin’s career and life. That’s all Kiffin needed to talk about concerning Ole Miss in the Vanity Fair interview.
That’s what Saban would’ve done.
Kiffin didn’t need to discuss Ole Miss’ racial issues, which are not nearly as bad as they used to be, as Archie Manning said. Kiffin won at Ole Miss largely because of black players he recruited from out of state, like quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacy. I doubt if many recruits nowadays listen to what their grandparents say about school choices anyway.
Kiffin crossed the line and motivated Ole Miss, which will now be lying in wait even more than they already were. It doesn’t matter if what Kiffin said is true. Just because something is true doesn’t mean you bring it up. Kiffin probably brought it up because he’s still mad that people are mad at him for leaving Ole Miss or he was still mad that he didn’t get to coach the team through the playoffs. Get over it. And maybe he is beginning to do so.
Saban had reasons to do the same to LSU after he left. One athletic department employee even accused his team of dirty play against LSU. But he never ripped LSU the way Kiffin rips Ole Miss here and there and calls it “his previous school.” Saban always said “LSU” proudly when referring to LSU while Alabama’s coach, even when some Alabama writers and other fans got tired of him talking about LSU.
Saban just threw bouquets LSU’s way over and over and beat the Tigers over and over.
He stayed above it, which is what Kiffin needs to do.
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