By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Lane Kiffin spoke for only about 30 minutes last Wednesday in his first press conference since being introduced as LSU’s new football coach on Dec. 1 at the Tiger Stadium suites. But out of that one press conference on Feb. 4, so many stories have emerged.
-LANE KIFFIN HAD TO GUT THE ROSTER, BECAUSE HE DOESN’T HAVE MAGIC DUST
-LANE KIFFIN IS NO YES MAN WHEN IT COMES TO “NO” IN RECRUITING
-THE LANE TRAIN EVEN MELTED THE BATON ROUGE ICE STORM
-THE PURPOSEFUL TOURIST OF BATON ROUGE: LANE KIFFIN
Well, here is one more from that press conference.
Kiffin was asked if he thought he and his coaching and personnel department staffs overachieved in their first two months on the job, considering the No. 1-ranked Transfer Portal class of 41 players and keeping a No. 11 traditional recruiting class together.
He didn’t think so. He said he and his staff were earning the money they are being paid, which in his case is $91 million over seven years. And he expects the new players to earn their Name, Image & Likeness money.
“I tell our guys it’s a production business,” Kiffin said. “I tell our players that. Tell our coaches that. These coaches were paid a lot of money to come here, and they need to produce. So, the first thing that we could do was the signing of the first class.”
Kiffin, 50, wanted to answer the hype around his much-publicized hiring.
“If you’re paid all this money, all this buildup of the hiring, and, ‘We (LSU) went and got him, and he had all these other places to go (Florida, Florida State, stay at Ole Miss), all that stuff.’ Okay, that’s great. That first press conference is cool and everything. But where’s the production?”
The first body of work Kiffin and staff could produce was the new roster since he did inherit a team that went 7-6. And with the early national signing period starting on that Wednesday, Dec. 3, he met with two of the top commitments left for him by former coach Brian Kelly. Those were No. 1 defensive tackle Richard Anderson of Edna Karr High in New Orleans and No. 1 overall athlete Lamar Brown of University High. Both were wavering, but he got them.
“Can you imagine having to wait to sign those two guys until today? It would have been a long wait,” Kiffin said in reference to the second national signing day of Feb. 4. “That was a big emphasis right away – the relationship with them and also getting them in that first period.”
And that was just the tip of iceberg with the Transfer Portal window approaching on Jan. 2. Kiffin and staff earned their salaries with that class.
“Where’s the production? The final production is obviously the winning on the field,” said Kiffin, who put up four 10-win seasons out of six as Ole Miss head coach from 2020-25. “We can’t win the game today, but what you can win is the roster and the recruiting. This is what’s supposed to happen. If you go get a staff and pay them what you do, you expect a lot. No different than these players that sit in here, and we go pay a player a lot.”
The total price tag for Kiffin’s first LSU roster is being estimated in the $35 million range with some of the bigger earners, such as No. 1 portal quarterback Sam Leavitt of Arizona State and No. 1 offensive tackle Jordan Seaton of Colorado, drawing salaries in the $5 million range.
“We have a lot of expectations for them,” he said. “They need to produce. I told them today. I told the staff yesterday. I told the players. You guys may have these salaries. But don’t sit around and think, ‘Okay, well, you have this salary for this coming year, because of what you did before.’ Just because you were this good player before, or you coached these players last year is not it. This salary is for the work you’re supposed to do.”
Kiffin’s philosophy about his salary and the salaries for his staff and players are not to be treated as a reward. They are not Super Bowl bonuses, if you will. Those salaries are the carrot to chase, not to eat now.
“You’ve got to go earn this every month,” Kiffin said. “And that’s why you’re here, and that’s the way I try to get them to look at it.”
And that’s why Kiffin wasn’t seen around town playing golf while he was rising at 4:30 a.m. during the staff hiring and recruiting periods
KIFFIN WORK ETHIC VS. KELLY WORK ETHIC
Kelly, according to those close to him at LSU, didn’t share the same work ethic. Kelly, who was 60 when hired by LSU from Notre Dame as the winningest active college coach in the country, saw his $100 million contract for 10 years as his golden parachute retirement plan. That now includes a $54 million buyout for getting fired without cause with six years to go.
“He played us,” one source said of Kelly. “This guy was playing golf during the season. Everybody at the country club said he was at the golf course every week. He wasn’t in tune. He didn’t know the players. The players didn’t know him. Nobody saw the guy in the summer. The problems with the coaching of that team were out of his neglect and laziness.”
LANE KIFFIN DIDN’T MAKE SAME MISTAKE WITH COREY RAYMOND THAT BRIAN KELLY DID
Kelly also struggled with coaching personnel decisions. Despite advice to retain defensive backs coach Corey Raymond from former coach Ed Orgeron’s staff, Kelly let Raymond get away to Florida. Kelly realized his mistake after the 2022 and ’23 seasons and brought Raymond back … for more money.
Kiffin, on the other hand, didn’t even think for a second as he took over at LSU about not keeping Raymond, the former LSU player who is 56 and has been a college defensive backfield coach since 2009.
“Corey, that’s just a no-brainer,” Kiffin said last week. “When you’re able to recruit people to someone – (Nick) Saban used to say this to me. If they’re older and they coach these certain players along the way, they become really easy to recruit to. So with Corey, you get a really unique combination, because you have somebody you can recruit to that has had great players after great players, after great players. But then somebody that also still recruits that way. It’s a really good combination.”
Kiffin dropped Raymond’s name while recruiting for LSU.
“If I get in front of a corner, I get to say, ‘Hey, you get to go play for him,'” Kiffin said. “And he recruits the same way that he did 20 years ago. The reason why I keep signing great players is they want to come play for guys like him. Corey was an easy one.”
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