LSU head coach Lane Kiffin isn’t expecting a warm welcome when he returns to Ole Miss this weekend, and local authorities are preparing accordingly.
With Week 2 in the rear view mirror, all eyes are on Week 3 of the college football season. There are some great matchups this weekend, like No. 16 ranked SMU heading to No. 23 Louisville (Go Cards!), or No. 22 Houston riding into No. 13 Texas Tech for an in-state, ranked matchup.
Despite the multitude of good games across the board, the one that pretty much everyone has circled – and has had circled for quite some time – is No. 7 LSU versus No. 8 Ole Miss. There’s certainly some bad blood between those two, top-10 SEC schools… and it all stems from the Tigers hiring Lane Kiffin away from the Rebels just before Ole Miss was set to make a run for a national championship.
It’s no secret and no surprise that Ole Miss fans don’t love how Kiffin left. The head coach had built up a college football playoff team, and then when he got the Rebs a couple of wins away from lifting up the trophy, he bolted for the greener pastures of LSU. That led to loads of frustrations and feelings of betrayal, and those feelings will surely come to a head on Saturday night.
Local authorities are doing their best to prepare for the bedlam that will come from the LSU-Ole Miss matchup, including ESPN’s College GameDay being present. With everything going on (the ranked matchup, ESPN being there, the Kiffin and Ole Miss reunion), there were even rumors that Oxford was considering bringing in the National Guard to help control the scene.
Oxford Police Chief Jeff McCutchen told WTVA that it could be the most people the town of Oxford has ever seen, and that he and his department are ready:
“I feel like it will probably be one of the biggest crowds that any of us have ever seen, and so you take that into consideration.”
Currently, the Oxford Police Department is working with law enforcement in neighboring areas – Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana – to bring in some reinforcement. They are making sure there are extra horse-mounted patrols across Oxford, and they feel like that should help security efforts tremendously.
McCutchen also confirmed that, despite rumors that the National Guard would be brought into Oxford, Mississippi to help protect Kiffin and the rest of the college football world that will be present there, it’ll actually just be the additional law enforcement brought in from surrounding areas that will help keep the biggest matchup of the college football weekend safe and secure.
It’s easy to see why the “Bring in the National Guard” rumors were swirling. It’s going to be absolutely mayhem in Oxford this weekend. After all, Lane Kiffin fled Ole Miss and, because of that, he became Public Enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the fans… and maybe even some of the players on the team that felt like they were left behind.
But Ole Miss feels good about their team – led by Trinidad Chambliss – and their chances, and they know the most gratifying revenge they could exact would be sending LSU and Kiffin back to the Bayou with a loss.
