By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Maybe Lane Kiffin heard the story about his mentor, Nick Saban, when Saban left the Michigan State head coaching job to become LSU’s new coach on November 30, 1999.
Not one assistant coach from the Spartans joined Saban on the plane. And most of them likely made the mistake of their professional lives, choosing to stay in East Lansing as a group, so Bobby Williams would be promoted from running backs coach to replace Saban.
It worked in the short term, but by late 2002, Williams was fired and the staff scattered, which is usually what happens.
Much of Kiffin’s staff at Ole Miss did not make that mistake as several members jumped on two planes from Oxford to Baton Rouge on Sunday evening, Nov. 30, 2025, to become members of Kiffin’s new staff at LSU. And LSU’s old staff has and will be scattering.
The coaches Kiffin immediately hired from his staff at Ole Miss were offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Charlie Weis Jr., co-offensive coordinator/tight ends coach Joe Cox, passing game coordinator/wide receivers coach George McDonald, defensive assistant coach Chris Kiffin (Lane’s younger brother who has been an NFL assistant for six seasons), assistant quarterbacks coach Dane Stevens, inside receivers coach Sawyer Jordan, strength coach Nick Savage, general manager Billy Glasscock, assistant director of football operations Tyler Veins and assistant recruiting coordinator Dwike Wilson.
Kiffin did make one key hire outside of Ole Miss in Kentucky offensive line coach Eric Wolford, who had great success with Alabama’s offensive line under Saban in 2022 and ’23. Saban likely recommended him to Kiffin. Wolford replaces Brad Davis, whose lines struggled mightily the last two seasons with the run game, and Ole Miss consistently had a strong one under Kiffin.
Weis, Cox, McDonald, Stevens and Jordan took another plane ride back to Oxford a week later, but not because of second thoughts. Ole Miss asked and Kiffin and LSU agreed that they could return to coach the Rebels through the College Football Playoff.
LSU COACHES AND OLE MISS VERSUS TULANE TODAY – 2:15 P.M. ON TNT, HBO MAX
You can watch all of them coach today when No. 6 and 11-1 Ole Miss – AKA LSU East during the CFP – hosts No. 11 Tulane (11-2) in the first round in Oxford (2:15 p.m., TNT, HBO) to advance to the Sugar Bowl to play No. 3 Georgia (12-1) on Jan. 1.
Weis, Cox, McDonald and Stevens will be coaching Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss. Watch him LSU fans. If he receives an NCAA waiver to get another senior year, he could very well transfer to LSU and Kiffin.
Ole Miss running backs coach Kevin Smith may not have been on either plane trip, but there is still likely a spot for him at that position at LSU. He’ll be coaching the Rebels today, too, particularly running back Kewan Lacy, who Kiffin has a chance at signing to LSU should Lacy enter the portal after the season. He may be part of a package deal with Smith. Perhaps this is why Ole Miss has already hired LSU interim coach Frank Wilson, who was LSU’s running backs coach and associate head coach before replacing fired coach Brian Kelly on Oct. 26.
Smith would replace Wilson, who strangely will continue to be coaching the Tigers in bowl practices and in the Texas Bowl on Dec. 27 against Houston in the Texas Bowl.
This is getting confusing.
Kiffin did not want to hire Wilson or offensive line coach Brad Davis or run game coordinator/tight ends coach Alex Atkins or co-offensive coordinator/receivers coach Cortez Hankton. They’re all coaching LSU through the bowl. Don’t be surprised if one or two of them end up at Ole Miss, too.
New Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding, a Hammond native, hired Wilson, a New Orleans native and an ace recruiter in that city. But old school ace recruiters like Wilson do not mean quite as much as they used to, now in year five of Name, Image & Likeness and the NCAA Transfer Portal with no-sit outs. Cash is the main thing that matters. Facilities don’t mean as much either, but facilitating salary demands does.
Golding was promoted by Ole Miss from defensive coordinator to replace Kiffin, who hired Golding as DC away from that post at Alabama after the 2022 season. In Wilson’s first year as Texas-San Antonio’s coach in 2016, he hired Golding from Southern Mississippi to be his defensive coordinator.
Wilson will reunite with Ole Miss new general manager Austin Thomas, who had that job at LSU, but was immediately not retained in that position by Kiffin. Remember, Thomas had left Kiffin and Ole Miss after the 2023 season to return to LSU and work under Kelly in 2024 and ’25. Maybe that angered Kiffin, because he replaced Thomas with Glasscock before even boarding that plane in Oxford.
As Tennessee’s head coach in 2009, Kiffin gave Thomas his first full-time job in football as a quality control assistant after he was a recruiting intern with the Vols in 2008. Wilson was wide receivers coach on that same Kiffin staff in 2009, and Larose native Ed Orgeron was Kiffin’s associate head coach, defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator on that staff. Orgeron and Kiffin had coached together at USC under head coach Pete Carroll.
Kiffin then brought Thomas with him when he became USC’s coach in 2010 and hired him again in 2022 at Ole Miss.
It’s important to note that having worked with someone previously somewhere can be an advantage or a disadvantage when that someone is doing the hiring. Kiffin hasn’t hired Orgeron again yet, though he does have a defensive line opening at the moment, and didn’t hire Wilson or Thomas again.
Kiffin is reportedly close to hiring South Carolina defensive line coach Sterling Lucas from South Carolina.
Orgeron would be a better hire than Lucas because of his unique connections. He was a head coach at Ole Miss. Oh, and he won a national championship at LSU. He could help Lane. And he still hates Ole Miss, too.
Wow. All this coach swapping, subsequent bloody rancor and prospective double agents galore between the programs may be making this LSU-Ole Miss rivalry harken back to the days when it was one of THE feuds in the SEC and at times the nation in the 1950s and ‘60s. It may be in the process of passing LSU-Alabama on the hate meter, too. The SEC ridiculously not making LSU-Alabama continue as an annual game will help that, despite it being a TV ratings bonanza as big as Bonanza with three No. 1 vs. No. 2 Games of the Century in 2011, ’12 and ’19.
LSU and Ole Miss did have a near Game of the Century on Oct. 31, 1959, when the No. 3 Rebels (6-0, 3-0 SEC) played No. 1 LSU (6-0, 2-0 SEC) and running back Billy Cannon in Tiger Stadium. LSU won, 7-3, on Cannon’s iconic 89-yard punt return – The Halloween Run.
But No. 2 Ole Miss (9-1) beat No. 3 LSU (9-1), 21-0, in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 1960, in Tulane Stadium, and was named national champions by Berryman, Billingsley, Dunkel and Sagarin, which was not the Final Four of national champion judges. Syracuse won the more accepted national championship by the Associated Press at 11-0. Ole Miss still has not won a universally accepted national championship. LSU has four.
Yes, the next LSU-Ole Miss game on Sept. 19 in Oxford will be what the LSU-Alabama game used to be when Saban coached the Crimson Tide from 2007-23 and won six national championships after coaching LSU from 2000-04 and won its first since 1958 in 2003.
What other coaches, analysts or assistant analysts from LSU’s 2025 staff might Ole Miss hire prior to Sept. 19?
Will LSU hire still more Ole Miss coaches and analysts or assistant analysts?
Stay tuned.
And will Ole Miss try to keep one or some of the LSU coaches coaching at Ole Miss today? They all have pretty financially binding contracts, but, hey, there’s always kidnapping.
Golding tried another LSU-motivated strategy on Friday. He tapped All-American Ole Miss quarterback Archie Manning to talk to the team.
For even the normally mild-mannered Archie has been upping the LSU hate meter. Manning, who played in the LSU-Ole Miss series from 1968-70 when it was still a blood feud the first time and basically single-handedly beat LSU twice, never liked Kiffin all that much when he was the Ole Miss coach. And he apparently dislikes him more now in Purple & Gold.
“I think we’re going to do great in the playoffs,” Manning was caught on tape telling a friend about the Rebels’ chances in the playoffs, beginning today, “without our narcissist, jerk head coach.”
See you on September 19.
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