Now even the police are making fun of him.
It’s not really any surprise that Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss to take the head coaching job at LSU turned into a massive circus. It seems to happen everywhere he goes: Kiffin just has a way of winning over fans and then leaving destruction in his wake when he leaves town, like when he was fired on the tarmac after his time at USC or when angry mobs took to the streets in Knoxville when we announced he was leaving Tennessee. It’s always something with this guy, and this time was certainly no different.
But Ole Miss just had the best season that Kiffin’s ever had in his coaching career, making the College Football Playoffs after going 11-1, so it’s no wonder that Rebels fans weren’t happy to see their coach leave for rival LSU and abandon his team before the playoffs even started. And the reports about the way he went about it only added salt to the wound.
On Friday after Ole Miss beat Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl, rumors began swirling that Kiffin would indeed be taking the job in Baton Rouge. And on Saturday, Kiffin met with athletic director Keith Carter and Ole Miss chancellor Glenn Boyce to discuss his future while the entire world waited to see what would happen.
As the night went on, it began to leak that Kiffin was leaving for LSU but wanted to coach Ole Miss in the playoffs, something that was apparently off the table for Carter. Then, it was reported that Kiffin was threatening to take his staff and players with him if he wasn’t allowed to coach the Rebels in the playoffs, which only enraged Ole Miss fans further.
All that led up to Sunday, when Kiffin announced he was taking the LSU job and Ole Miss defensive coordinator Pete Golding was named the head coach of the Rebels – the permanent head coach, not just the interim.
Meanwhile at the airport, Kiffin was greeted by a crowd of Ole Miss fans to shower him with boos and give him the middle finger boarded his plane to Baton Rouge.
And when he got to Baton Rouge, you could tell Kiffin wasn’t happy about his treatment as he left Oxford. Several times during his introductory press conference, the coach mentioned that angry fans tried to run his car off the road as he drove to the airport.
Things only got weirder with the whole saga earlier this week when it was widely reported that Kiffin didn’t take his famous dog, Juice, with him to Baton Rouge.
Kiffin adopted the yellow labrador from Wildrose Kennels back in 2021, and since then Juice has become somewhat of an unofficial mascot for Ole Miss football.
He even has his own Twitter account, which came under fire this weekend when “Juice” tweeted about the SEC championship game just hours before Kiffin accepted the LSU job.
But after Kiffin left Ole Miss, rumors began swirling that not only did Juice not make the trip to Baton Rouge, he may not have even belonged to Lane in the first place.
Juice is not his dog and will be staying in Oxford with his handler who he has always lived with.
— Стася🇷🇺🇹🇹 (@stasyacm) December 1, 2025
Another report says that while Juice really was Lane’s dog, he’s been living with handlers and it’s unclear whether Juice will be making the trip to Baton Rouge to live with Lane there.
Regardless, it’s been a total circus.
But the Mississippi Department of Public Safety took to social media yesterday to dispel Kiffin’s claims that fans were trying to run him off the road as he left town – while also making fun of the scandal surrounding his dog, Juice.
That’s pretty funny.
It sounds like Kiffin may have been exaggerating a bit about fans trying to run him off the road, maybe trying to play the victim in all this at a time when he’s being painted as the villain for bailing on his playoff team.
Or maybe he really was chased out of town by a mob of angry fans trying to run him off the road. It wouldn’t surprise me – because it wouldn’t be the most chaotic exit Kiffin has ever made after leaving a job.
He just has a way of leaving destruction in his path.
