Lane Kiffin Stopped Tweeting After Vanity Fair Article Hit, But He Says Now His Son Knox Deserves The Credit

By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor

As far as Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey is concerned, Knox Kiffin, age 17, is his Social Media MVP.

LSU football coach Lane Kiffin’s son, who will be the starting quarterback for University High on the LSU campus this season, was the real signal caller when it came to his dad stopping all his tweeting on X.

“Last year, I introduced Lane by talking about his prolific social media activity,” Sankey said while introducing Kiffin to swarms of reporters at SEC Media Days on Thursday morning at the Marriott Tampa Water Street in Tampa, Florida.

“As of this morning, Lane has been off social media since May 11,” Sankey said. “I’m told, he gave it up because of a challenge from his son, Knox.”

Knox was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2009 when Kiffin was the coach at Tennessee – hence the name.

“Thus, my suggestion that someone give Knox a hug for me, who told his dad you spend too much time on social media,” Sankey said.

Actually, Kiffin has tweeted since May 11, but only once, and he was tweeting about how he hasn’t been tweeting – in true Kiffin style. But he’s not the first of that ilk. Former LSU basketball coach Dale Brown once called a press conference back in the 1990s to announce that he will not be talking to the media as much as he had previously.

Kiffin tweeted this on June 18:

5/11/26 pic.twitter.com/dPABjcSAxg

— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) June 18, 2026

His last previous tweets and reposts were on Monday, May 11.

Lane Kiffin Graces Cover Of “Vanity Fair,” Which Takes Deep Dive On Rock Star LSU Football Coach

That just happened to be the day an excellent feature on him by Chris Smith of Vanity Fair published.

Great spending time with you @chrissmithnymag Have a great week everyone!!! @LSUfootball @VanityFair #SpotTheBall https://t.co/yimrVbrS7j

— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) May 11, 2026

But the story included a quote and anecdote from Kiffin about Ole Miss’ racial past that went viral, which he apologized for at the time and then said was “a poor decision” on Thursday at SEC Media Days.

As that article began trending for days and weeks on May 11 is apparently about the time Kiffin’s son challenged his dad to stop tweeting. Or maybe Kiffin stopped on his own on May 11, and his son helped keep it stopped.

Lane Kiffin DOES NOT Tweet For The Time Being After Vanity Fair Article Controversy

“Right now, he’s not tweeting,” Knox Kiffin said on May 26 on WAFB-Channel 9 sports anchor Jacques Doucet’s “Jacques Talk” show. “And he doesn’t really want to. And I respect that.”

Some media members opined that LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry told Kiffin to stop tweeting because of the Vanity Fair controversy. Ausberry confirmed to Tiger Rag that he did not do that and also said that on a “Jacques Talk” edition.

“I had nothing to do with that,” Ausberry said on Channel 9. “That’s all Lane. Lane’s Lane. One thing I do, I don’t try to change who my coaches are. They are who they are. Those personalities they have, that’s what makes those guys. I want them to have that. I don’t want them to say, ‘I’m going to change who I am.’ Be who you are. That’s what makes them so successful.”

The idea of Ausberry, who makes $1.5 million a year, ordering or suggesting that Kiffin, who makes $13.5 million a year, is a ridiculous notion. In fact, one of the reasons Kiffin took the LSU job was partly because of Ausberry’s hands-off approach, as he said in his introductory press conference on Dec. 1.

Lane Kiffin Really Liked One Selling Point In Particular From LSU AD Verge Ausberry

“I’m going to leave you alone and let you coach the team,” Kiffin said Ausberry told him in their first meeting about the LSU opening last November. “I like when I hear that. ‘We’re going to give you everything to win, and I’m going to leave you alone. Go coach the team and bring us championships.’”

Athletic Directors at major programs in recent decades, because of the money power structure, rarely tell a football coach what to do or say, or not say or not tweet.

So, the ban on Kiffin tweets came from a Kiffin as Tiger Rag has long reported, but Knox Kiffin’s role in that was only revealed on Thursday.

“Knox one day was like, ‘Dad, there’s no way you can get off social media,'” Kiffin said Thursday. “If you know me, that’s the best thing to do. My kids have learned that, too. If they really want something, just say I can’t do it, and I’m going to do it. And so I’m like, ‘Oh, I bet I can.'”

And so far, it’s working. But Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss looms on Sept. 19 (6:30 p.m., ABC). The motivation to tweet may be great.

“And it really wasn’t a plan,” Kiffin said. “So, I got off of all of it. Then it was still on there. I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to go to another level,’ and I just deleted the apps. Wasn’t a long-term plan. It was really interesting to see as I went through it because Knox pushing me to do that, challenging me, allowed me to help other players, friends, coaches to say, ‘Man, you should try this sometime.’ Because once you remove something from your life, you start to realize how many other people are addicted to it or need it.”

Kiffin said freedom of social media has meant freedom from unnecessary comparisons.

“It is interesting now,” he said. “I did a 5 a.m. workout at Camp Tampa. And I watched, as soon as the workout is over this morning, what did everybody do? They rush to get their phones, because they have to get on there. To be free of that has been interesting because you don’t compare.”

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Kiffin brought up friend Kevin Elko, a motivational speaker and consultant who was at his dad Monte Kiffin’s funeral in Tampa in 2024.

“Kevin used to say to us years ago at Alabama (where Kiffin was offensive coordinator from 2014-16): ‘Comparisons are the thief of joy,'” Kiffin said. “What I realized and what I talk to people about now is, like, if you’re not on anything, you don’t see anything all day, you don’t compare. Because now social media does what? You sit there all day long, and you start to compare your job. You start to compare the city you live in. You start to compare your vacation, your kids, your clothes, your car, your significant other. When you don’t see that all day, you’re free of that comparison.”

It doesn’t sound like Kiffin will be returning to Twitter.

“It’s been an interesting study,” he said. “I’ve always made our kids, our players, not have their phones in certain times, like team meetings and stuff, just to get them off of them so they can learn to communicate. It’s just been interesting and a way of being more present. So, I appreciate Knox challenging me on that. It’s been great.”