There has been a lot of debate over Lane Kiffin’s decision to leave Ole Miss for LSU. Kiffin has shown you can win in Oxford. He has won at least ten games in his four seasons as the Rebels coach. This season is the first 11-win season in school history, and Ole Miss will likely be one of the 12 teams in the College Football playoffs when the bracket is unveiled on Sunday.
Many have said Kiffin should just stay at Ole Miss, and in this NIL era of college football, you can win almost anywhere.
During his introductory press conference on Monday, Kiffin laid out his reasoning for taking the LSU job, despite being four wins away from winning a national title at Ole Miss.
“I can sum it up by saying this: this place is different,” Kiffin said. “Having watched this place for a long time, having been on the other sidelines in this stadium, this place is different, and that’s why we’re here. We have a lot of work to do with that, but I’m very grateful for the opportunity to lead one of the elite programs in all of sports.
Kiffin went on to say that leaving Ole Miss was extremely difficult.
To help him make this difficult decision, he leaned on two national championship-winning coaches for guidance. Kiffin says he spoke with Nick Saban and Pete Carroll, and it was the former USC and current Las Vegas Raiders coach who told him to take the LSU job.
“Everybody that I talked to outside of the state I was in, all basically said the same thing, they all said you are going to regret it if you don’t take that shot and you don’t go to LSU, it’s the best job in America with the best resources,” Kiffin said.
Once it became clear Kiffin would not coach Ole Miss in the postseason or have the opportunity to say goodbye to his players, the next trick was getting out of Oxford.
Kiffin said he needed help from a friend of his who was a police officer to get to the airport, as upset Ole Miss fans tried to run him and his son off the road.
When Kiffin and his son were walking towards the plane that LSU sent to pick him up and take him to Baton Rouge, an angry group of Rebels fans stood behind a fence surrounding the airfield, screaming obscenities at their former beloved coach.
“You know, I’m human,” Kiffin said. “That airport scene and all the things being said, I understand it. It’s the passion, but they’re saying that about you, that you thought you did a really good job for six years for them. That affects you.”
Kiffin admits he started having mixed feelings about his decision during the flight to Baton Rouge. But when the plane landed, and his family was greeted by LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry, system president Wade Rousse, and members of the LSU Board of Supervisors, he felt the power of LSU.
About 100 fans stood outside the Baton Rouge airport to greet Kiffin. Once he passed by Tiger Stadium on the way to the LSU football operations building, he knew he had made the right decision.
The one person he had to call was former LSU coach Ed Orgeron.
“I called Ed Orgeron, and I said, hey, man, all I can do is, man, this place just makes me want to talk like you right now, I did,” Kiffin said. “I rolled down the window, and I was like Geaux Tigers to the fans.”
Kiffin claims he does not know how much he’ll make coaching LSU. It will be 13 million dollars a year for the next seven years, and LSU will pay his postseason bonus for Ole Miss making the College Football Playoff and if the Rebels win the national championship, LSU will pay that one-million-dollar bonus to LSU.
Kiffin was more concerned about the funding structure at LSU for NIL to attract the best players in the country to Baton Rouge.
Kiffin, who declared himself the “Portal King” at Ole Miss for his ability to sign players out of the transfer portal, believes he will have an easier time at LSU.
“I have zero concern about the interest of players with that, because I know what the interest was of players nationally to come play for us where we were just at, and now when you put that with this stadium and that logo, I mean, it makes me want to get on the phone right now, but the portal is not open.”
The transfer portal window opens in a month on January 2nd.
Kiffin has a big task in front of him, but he seems relieved the messy divorce with Ole Miss is over with and he is enjoying the honeymoon phase with his new marriage, and that is LSU football and its fans.
It really is a different place in a great way, and for those who have never experienced it, like many of the national talking heads who said Kiffin should stay at Ole Miss, they will never understand it.