This guy really doesn’t miss an opportunity to take a shot at his previous employer.
Lane Kiffin is one of the highest-paid coaches in college football after signing his 7-year, $91 million contract to become the head coach at LSU this past offseason. But he’s also one of the most controversial, thanks in no small part to the way he made his exit from Ole Miss to take the job with the Tigers.
Of course everybody knows about the nasty breakup between Ole Miss and Kiffin.
The coach’s name had been thrown around quite a bit for the open job in Baton Rouge, as well as with the Florida Gators, but Kiffin seemed to have a hard time making up his mind and ultimately was given a deadline by Ole Miss following their final game. We all know which job he chose, but Kiffin wanted to stay in Oxford and coach the Rebels in the playoffs.
Ole Miss, meanwhile, told him to kick rocks and instead named defensive coordinator Pete Golding as their new head coach, and Kiffin became public enemy #1 on his way out of Oxford.
Kiffin, meanwhile, hasn’t been shy about taking shots at his previous employer. Back in December, the notorious Twitter troll posted a picture of LSU scoring a touchdown on Ole Miss – in a game that, as many pointed out, the Kiffin-led Rebels ended up losing.
And last month, he even tagged Ole Miss (and the Tennessee Volunteers, another school that he left) in a tweet while sharing a quote:
“Imagine how boring your life would be if you didn’t have me to annoy you.”
Just a massive troll.
But I have a feeling his latest comments on his previous employer are going to give Ole Miss fans plenty of bulletin board material when they play LSU.
During an interview with Vanity Fair, Kiffin implied (for the first time) that recruits were refusing to come to Ole Miss because of the state of Mississippi’s racial issues, comparing it to recruiting in Baton Rouge:
“‘Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi.’ That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’s diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.’”
The state of Mississippi redesigned their state flag in 2020 to remove the confederate flag and replaced it with a magnolia blossom, but obviously Ole Miss still uses the nickname the Rebels. The university replaced their previous mascot, a southern plantation owner named Colonel Rebel, in 2010.
Kiffin attempted to clarify that his comments weren’t meant as a shot at Ole Miss, but were simply a comment on the diversity of the two cities. But as many pointed out, the LSU got their nickname “the Tigers” from the Louisiana Tigers, a confederate military regiment in Robert E. Lee’s army.
It’s also interesting that Kiffin has never brought up problems with the mascot before, and waited 6 months after leaving Oxford before pointing to diversity or racial issues as a reason for taking the job. (It also has to be pointed out that Ole Miss won two playoff games even without Kiffin, while LSU lost to Houston in the Texas Bowl to finish the season 7-6…seems like the alleged diversity issues weren’t a problem in Oxford this year).
Overall the comments may simply be Kiffin yet again trolling his old school, or maybe he really was told by players that they couldn’t come to Ole Miss because of the lack of diversity in Oxford.
Either way, it’s safe to say that Ole Miss fans are going to be even more fired up on September 19, 2026 when the LSU Tigers roll into Oxford and Kiffin makes his return to Vaught Hemingway Stadium – on the opposing sideline.
