add players off NFL training camp rosters<\/a> in recent weeks.<\/p>\nThere isn\u2019t a more polarizing figure in the entire sport than the visor-wearing, brash-talking, well-traveled Kiffin.<\/p>\n
LSU head coach Lane Kiffin fields questions after an NCAA college football practice on Monday, August 10, 2026, in Baton Rouge, La. Michael Johnson\/The Advocate via AP<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the biggest villain I think the sport has had in modern time,\u201d SEC historian and ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum told The Post in a phone interview. \u201cIt is a great story on many levels, and the person happiest with that is Lane Kiffin. It\u2019s who he is. I think he\u2019s a great coach, but he\u2019s a better puppeteer and entertainer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople go, well, what\u2019s the big deal, if they don\u2019t follow college football. The big deal is that no one has ever done what he did last season. He walked out on a team that had a chance to win the national championship. Quite frankly, only Lane Kiffin could do that. You can tell me, top 30 coaches in America, would anyone else have done it, no, and he did it, and he got away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t new when it comes to Kiffin. He was once fired at an airport by USC. He left Tennessee following one season, leading to campus unrest after he had assured fans and recruits he wasn\u2019t going anywhere. Nick Saban let him go as his offensive coordinator at Alabama a week before the 2017 national championship game, because Kiffin wasn\u2019t giving the job enough attention after taking the head coaching position at Florida Atlantic.<\/p>\n
The noise had begun to quiet around Kiffin in recent years. He took over at Ole Miss in 2020, and turned around a program that had enjoyed only brief instances of success. He became the second Rebels coach to win at least 10 games in back-to-back seasons in 2023 and 2024, joining John Vaught. Last year, the Rebels took another step forward, looking like a national championship contender. Then, LSU came calling after firing Brian Kelly during a dismal 7-6 campaign, and Kiffin got the itch.<\/p>\n
LSU head coach Lane Kiffin watches his team during spring NCAA college football practice Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Baton Rouge, La. Javier Gallegos\/The Advocate via AP<\/p>\n
In typical Kiffin fashion, he attempted to walk an impossibly thin tightrope: Coach Ole Miss through the playoff while recruiting for LSU. The Rebels couldn\u2019t possibly allow that, and athletic director Keith Carter said Kiffin knew weeks in advance if he took the LSU job, it meant someone else would be coaching the Rebels in the playoff. Kiffin took eight assistant coaches with him, including highly regarded offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., although he did remain with the Rebels for their playoff run.<\/p>\n
New Ole Miss coach Pete Golding, Kiffin\u2019s defensive coordinator before his departure, used him as an example of how not to build a legacy. In convincing his two offensive stars, quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy, to remain as Rebels, he told them to Google Kiffin \u2014 \u201cthe dude they\u2019d have built a statue of.\u201d<\/p>\n
LSU Tigers head football coach Lane Kiffin talks with quarterback Husan Longstreet (8) at LSU football practice on Wednesday, August 26, 2026. USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wouldn\u2019t piss on him if he was on fire,\u201d he told them.<\/p>\n
Kiffin hasn\u2019t stopped pushing boundaries. His top-notch transfer class included several Ole Miss players, such as leading tackler TJ Dottery and star edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen. That pales in comparison to the last few weeks. LSU has taken commitments from tight end Dae\u2019Quan Wright and defensive lineman Zxavian Harris, players who signed with NFL teams. They are part of the high school class of 2022 that was denied a fifth year of eligibility despite the NCAA\u2019s new eligibility rule that allows athletes to play five seasons in five years. That duo is part of a group that has won a temporary restraining order in Louisiana for an extra year of eligibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, because of these rulings, they\u2019re either going to play for you or they\u2019re going to play for someone else around the country,\u201d Kiffin said last week, defending his actions. \u201cSo we\u2019ve made the decision to recruit them like probably most people are.\u201d<\/p>\n
The status of the players is unclear. There is a hearing for a preliminary injunction on Thursday \u2014 two days before LSU\u2019s opener against Clemson \u2014 adding to the hoopla of Kiffin\u2019s first season with the Tigers. It will reach a fever pitch on Sept. 19, when he returns to Oxford, Miss. A huge police presence will be needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve covered games that had a lot of emotion, and it\u2019s worth remembering the game five years ago when Kiffin went back to Tennessee. That fan base hated him as well,\u201d Finebaum said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think I would ever see a fan base that hated somebody as much as Tennessee hated Lane Kiffin. But this will make Tennessee look like nursery rhymes.\u201d<\/p>\n
LSU football head coach Lane Kiffin speaks during a news conference at the LSU Football Operations Facility in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. Hilary Scheinuk\/The Advocate via AP<\/p>\n
Despite everything that has happened away from the field, it\u2019s hard to argue with Kiffin\u2019s success on it. He turned Ole Miss into a power. Saban has credited Kiffin with modernizing Alabama\u2019s offense in his time there. He remade the LSU roster and has them ranked 11th entering the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cLane has never been afraid of the work that goes into recruiting, the phone calls and all the film work to evaluate players,\u201d said Rick Neuheisel, a SiriusXM College Sports Radio host and former Washington and UCLA coach who faced Kiffin when he was at USC. \u201cHe does as good of a job as any, there. Finding Trinidad Chambliss, for instance, last year at Ole Miss was a stroke of genius.\u201d<\/p>\n
It sets up a fascinating dynamic. Anything short of greatness, and Kiffin will get crushed. His off-the-field moves have created an enormous amount of pressure. He is expected to win big immediately.<\/p>\n
There is one guarantee: Everyone will be watching the new LSU coach\u2019s every move this fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Success on the field and the recruiting trail, drama everywhere else. It is the Lane Kiffin mission statement.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1034365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[43],"tags":[1428,1318,12945,16660,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1034364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college-football","tag-football","tag-lane-kiffin","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117188466309131216","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}