{"id":531073,"date":"2026-01-21T01:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T01:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/531073\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T01:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T01:12:09","slug":"paul-finebaum-lane-kiffin-likely-feels-vindicated-over-lsu-move-following-cfp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/531073\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Finebaum: Lane Kiffin likely feels \u2018vindicated\u2019 over LSU move following CFP"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 1 Indiana<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s 27-21 victory over No. 10 Miami<\/a><\/strong> Monday night closed out a forever unforgettable college football season, highlighted by the Hoosiers\u2019 run to immortality and the Lane Kiffin<\/a><\/strong> saga, which dominated headlines over the last two months of 2025.<\/p>\n

Nearly two months after Kiffin was officially hired at LSU<\/strong>, all eyes are pointed towards his first season in Baton Rouge. During Monday\u2019s edition of \u2018The Matt Barrie Show<\/a>\u2018, ESPN\u2019s Paul Finebaum <\/strong>claimed that Kiffin likely feels \u2018vindicated\u2019 over his move now that the season has officially ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy and convenient to be critical of him,\u201d Finebaum said. \u201cAs sloppy and as ugly as that process was, he\u2019s gonna come out okay. It really came down to \u2014 if Ole Miss<\/strong> had made the Championship Game \u2014 it would have been problematic. They didn\u2019t. That story\u2019s over. It died in the desert. We\u2019ve already talked about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s stockpiled where he needed to stockpile for next season. That\u2019s the most important thing. He\u2019s ahead of the game. Had he been able to stay at Ole Miss<\/strong> and coach until last night or 12 days ago, he wouldn\u2019t have been. I\u2019m sure he feels vindicated today too in the most inarticulate way. But, that is true. Looking around the SEC, LSU<\/strong> is clearly moving up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lane Kiffin has built strong portal class at LSU, poised for CFP run<\/p>\n

While Ole Miss<\/a><\/strong> and newly-promoted head coach Pete Golding<\/a><\/strong> made a run to the Semifinals of the College Football Playoff, Lane Kiffin<\/strong> was busy building next season\u2019s LSU<\/strong> roster through the Transfer Portal<\/a>. As Finebaum alluded too, if Kiffin was able to coach Ole Miss<\/strong> through the end of its season, he would have been pulling double duty at both programs. No way would this have been a positive for LSU<\/strong>, which now makes all the sense in the world for Kiffin and his new program that he did not do that.<\/p>\n

In his sixth and final season in charge, Kiffin led\u00a0Ole Miss<\/strong>\u00a0to an 11-1 record and its best regular season in program history. Following the Rebels\u2019 Egg Bowl victory over\u00a0Mississippi State<\/a><\/strong>, however, Kiffin answered the long-asked \u2018will he stay, or will he go\u2019 question by announcing that he\u2019d be heading to\u00a0LSU<\/strong>. The rest is history, and both programs now seem poised to stake their claim at the top of the Southeastern Conference next season.<\/p>\n

Kiffin\u2019s LSU<\/strong> Tigers and Golding\u2019s Ole Miss<\/strong> Rebels will meet on Sept. 19 in Oxford, in a game that will surely be one for the ages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 1 Indiana\u2018s 27-21 victory over No. 10 Miami Monday night closed out a forever unforgettable college football…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":531074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,151573,1317,1315,1316,20975,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-531073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-lane-kiffin-94-jefferson","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-paul-finebaum","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115930434375010855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531073","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=531073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}