By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Vanity Fair writer Chris Smith’s time in Baton Rouge last month to interview new LSU football coach Lane Kiffin started at the iconic Poor Boy Lloyd’s restaurant on Florida Street in downtown Baton Rouge.
“And I picked up a copy right inside the door of the Tiger Rag money issue,” Smith said of the March, 2026, issue while on Tiger Rag Radio Tuesday night, which can be listened to by hitting the white arrow in the red box on the above link.
That issue’s headline said, “Inside The Fiscal Fight,” as the magazine delved into LSU’s projected $30 million deficit and the expected, approximate $40 million cost of Kiffin’s new, 41-man NCAA Transfer Portal roster.
“And that helped with my research,” Smith said.
Smith interviewed Kiffin that afternoon in his office “about all kinds of subjects.” Then he returned the next day to review, go to a spring practice and return to his office for more interviewing.
THE LANE KIFFIN FEATURE IN VANITY FAIR
“And the first thing he does is say, ‘Here,'” Smith said. “And he hands me a Tiger Rag Magazine and says, ‘This has a bunch of details that I didn’t even know.'”
That was the December, 2025, issue with a picture of Kiffin on the cover under the headline, “What’s Next?” And another headline that said, “Inside LSU’s Bloody October” was also on the cover.
“It had a blow-by-blow of his arrival,” Smith said. “So, thanks for the help. And Lane Kiffin is not just a Tiger Rag subject, but a reader.”
Smith also explained on Tiger Rag Radio how the now infamous quote from Kiffin about the racial image issues that have long faced Ole Miss, which has the nickname “Rebels” and has used a plantation-related Colonel Reb as a mascot.
In the Vanity Fair story, Smith writes, “When he was coaching (at Ole Miss), Kiffin says, top recruits would tell him, ‘Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi.'”
Kiffin is then quoted. “That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” he says in the story. “Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus diversity feels so great. ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.’”
Kiffin added, “There are some things that I’m saying that are factual. They’re not shots.”
After the story published, Kiffin came out on Tuesday and somewhat apologized about the comment on Ole Miss’ image problem.
“I really apologize if anybody at Ole Miss or in Mississippi was offended by that,” Kiffin told On3.com.
“IF,” you offended anyone? Really, Lane? The word “If” should be removed from all apologies.https://t.co/ar5om9m8Oy
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) May 12, 2026
“In a four-hour interview, I was asked a lot of questions on a lot of things,” Kiffin continued to On3.com. “And Ole Miss has been wonderful to me and to my family. I was asked questions about the differences in recruiting, and I said a narrative that we battled there from some out-of-state Black parents and grandparents was not wanting their kid to move to Mississippi. That’s a narrative that (Ole Miss) coaches have been fighting forever. It wasn’t calculated by bringing it up.”
Smith told Tiger Rag Radio he did not specifically ask about any racial issues with Ole Miss’ image.
“I had asked him about the factors that went into his decision to leave Ole Miss for LSU. Did he think, however much success he had had at Oxford, that the ceiling would be higher at LSU?” Smith said. “He started with some conventional reasons like the money available for LSU and it’s allies for the portal roster, and as he said, “it was ‘adult money.'”
Smith said Kiffin then began to compare the histories of the two programs. LSU has won three national championships in the last 23 years in 2003, 2007 and 2019 with a runner-up finish in 2011. Ole Miss last won a national championship by a reputable source in 1960 by the Football Writers Association of America. The Rebels won the last of their six Southeastern Conference titles in 1963. LSU has won 12 SEC titles, including four in the 2000s – 2001, 2007, 2011 and ’19. And it has four national titles in all with the first one in 1958.
“Then he started talking about the images of the two places,” Smith said. “And he volunteered to my surprise that anecdote about black recruits and their families regularly telling him that, ‘We like you coach, but my grandparents are not going to let me come to Oxford.’ And how he’s not going to have that problem in Baton Rouge. I wish I could say it was some genius question that I used to pull it out of him. But no.”
Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame columnist Scooter Hobbs of the Lake Charles American Press said later on Tiger Rag Radio Tuesday night that Kiffin’s comments about Ole Miss may be accurate, but still “crossed the line.”
Smith later said a college football coach as the cover story of Vanity Fair is unique. And he praised Kiffin for not having someone from LSU’s athletic department present during the interview, which is often done by coaches. And for something else.
“One thing I give him credit for, he doesn’t resort to the athletic cliche of, ‘I don’t pay attention to what’s written or said about me,'” Smith said. “Kiffin is up front that he’s paying attention to EVERYTHING.”
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