Football Coach Lane Kiffin’s final chapter at the University of Mississippi was written Sunday when he announced his decision to accept a $90 million offer from Louisiana State University, but the fallout from his decision to leave a team bound for the College Football Playoff (for an SEC rival his team defeated this season) is sure to be felt across the sport for days, weeks and years to come.
We’ll also get into the mess that is college football’s calendar and how that calendar partially contributes to seeming betrayals like Kiffin’s, but let’s start with the fact that for Kiffin, a reported $9 million salary before bonuses, leading Ole Miss, a lock for the 12-team playoff, to its best season in 65 years wasn’t enough. He found greener pastures in Baton Rouge and is leaving a group of young men who had brought him the most success he had experienced as a head coach.
He is leaving a group of young men who had brought him the most success he had experienced as a head coach.
Since entering the coaching ranks as the next big thing for the then-Oakland Raiders in 2007, it’s been a litany of short stays for Kiffin. After being fired by that NFL team after he went 5-15, he was hired by the University of Tennessee in 2009 where stayed only a single season before bolting for an opening at the University of Southern California. He called coaching USC his “dream job.” The dream lasted just 4 years, where Kiffin went 28-15. After a couple of Conference USA titles at Florida Atlantic, Kiffin left that school for Ole Miss before the 2020 season.
Always looking for the next best thing, the only constants for Kiffin have been change and a seeming lack of maturity that resulted in the late Raiders owner Al Davis labeling him a “professional liar” and Kiffin wrongly disparaging opposing coaches. The narrative of the past few years had been that Kiffin had changed: he’d quit drinking and started eating healthier and doing yoga. But this week, Kiffin defaulted back to what he was best known for: leaving for another dream job.
And though when he’s leaving and how he’s leaving are problematic, there’s no question that LSU is one of the marquee jobs in college football. Three of the last four LSU head coaches have won a national championship for the Tigers. From that perspective, nobody could blame Kiffin for the decision he made. It’s the kind of job that rarely opens up. The stars aligned perfectly for Kiffin with the mid-season ouster of LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly and Kiffin’s remarkable 2025 season in Oxford.
For weeks, it was obvious Kiffin would be the top choice for Florida (another SEC rival) and LSU, but Friday’s game against Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl, Ole Miss Athletic Director Kevin Carter expressed confidence that Kiffin would remain in Oxford. “It just became time,” Kiffin told ESPN’s Marty Smith Sunday that Ole Miss “has been a really special place.” But, he said, “It just became time. I talked to God, and he told me it’s time to take a new step. It’s a new chapter.”
“It just became time. I talked to God, and he told me it’s time to take a new step. It’s a new chapter.”
Lane Kiffin
While Kiffin said he had hoped that Ole Miss would allow him to lead the Rebels through the playoffs, officials reportedly didn’t allow it. Kiffin said Carter wouldn’t allow him to attend a team meeting Sunday. And as much as some outsiders may believe that Carter should have allowed for such a scenario, the egos and emotions involved made it impossible. Throw in Kiffin’s reported threat of poaching the entire coaching staff if he wasn’t allowed to coach Ole Miss during its expected playoff run, and it’s easy to see how quickly hard feelings developed between the departing coach and his now-former team.
By comparison, Jon Sumrall and Eric Morris will meet as the coaches of Tulane and North Texas in Friday’s American Conference Championship game, despite their landing jobs at Florida and Oklahoma State respectively next season. In the case of Sumrall, Tulane Athletic Director David Harris cited Sumrall’s “transparency” as a reason Tulane will let him continue coaching the team for a potential playoff run. However, it should be noted that, unlike Kiffin, Sumrall isn’t leaving his team for a conference rival. Neither is Morris.
But back to the elephant in the room: the college football calendar, or the lack thereof. College programs begin signing high school football stars this week. The College Football Playoff starts December 19. The transfer portal opens up January 2, almost three weeks before the national championship game With all the money pouring into collegiate football programs, schools have to have their ducks in a row. That means tons of turnover at bigger programs and mid majors alike.
There are some common sense solutions. Move back the high school signing date to later in December. And instead of one transfer portal in January, move that transfer portal to the spring. This doesn’t cure all the ails of college football, but it does take some of the strain off the existing structure.
Finally, we head back to Kiffin. He’ll be watching his former defensive coordinator Pete Golding coach the team he built into a National Championship contender. For all the jockeying LSU and Florida did for his services, remember this: This was as close as Lane Kiffin has ever gotten to a championship as a head coach. (And given the competitive nature of college football today, it could be as close as he ever gets.) But despite getting that close, he’s denying himself the chance to see his team’s great run through to its ultimate conclusion.
Jason Page
Jason Page is the host of the nationally syndicated daily TV show “SportsWrap w/Jason Page.”