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Like him or loathe him, LSU coach Lane Kiffin is poised to be the sports media story of the college football season.
The bad boy of college sports has come a long way from coaching the Florida Atlantic Owls—or from being chewed out as an assistant by Nick Saban at Alabama.
Heading into Week 1, most of the buzz was about the Tigers’ first-year coach allegedly skirting the rules by recruiting players who had spent most of the offseason on NFL rosters . On Thursday, the SEC sued LSU in federal court over the matter, with Kiffin named as a defendant.
After LSU humiliated Clemson 51-10 on Saturday night before 102,000 fans, the question should now be whether Kiffin’s Tigers are the best team in the country. But every positive with Kiffin seems to come with a negative; on Tuesday, the SEC amended its complaint, seeking the legal authority to expel LSU from the league. With the SEC voting on Thursday, you also have to ask: Has Kiffin pushed things too far?
Either way, Kiffin has morphed from a charming comeback story at Ole Miss to a coach that many fans love to hate. The Wall Street Journal generously calls him “polarizing.” ESPN’s Paul Finebaum blasted him as a “51-year old man behaving like a 16-year-old.” Bomani Jones sums up Kiffin’s persona with a single word: “Asshole.”
That’s good news ratings-wise for networks like ESPN/ABC that will televise LSU games this season. As before when viewers tuned in to watch Saban lose his mind on the sidelines with the Crimson Tide, there will be fans hoping to watch Kiffin and the Tigers get their comeuppance.
During a peripatetic coaching career that included stops at Tennessee, USC, Alabama (as an assistant), FAU, and Ole Miss, not to mention the NFL’s Raiders, Kiffin apparently learned some valuable lessons.
Among them: Roguish behavior attracts attention from impressionable recruits, from schools looking for hot coaches, and from the national media that’s looking for clicks and TV ratings. Clay Travis of Sport & State believes Kiffin is deliberately “leaning in” to his role as the biggest villain in college football history.
Meanwhile, Kiffin’s savvy enough to know the throne of King of College Football is vacant. The son of legendary football coach Monte Kiffin is stepping forward to seize his birthright. Who’s to stop him? Saban, the Darth Vader of college football, retired from Alabama in 2024. The 74-year-old legend’s doing College GameDay now for ESPN. There’s a younger Sith Lord less than 300 miles from Tuscaloosa in Baton Rouge.
The scowling Curt Cignetti of Indiana is the current alpha. But who knows if his defending national champion Hoosiers can catch lightning in a bottle again? Ryan Day of Ohio State has his 2024 national championship, but he’s too bland and doesn’t move the needle. Bill Belichick is too old at 74 years old, plus, he’s under fire in North Carolina. Clemson’s Dabo Sweeney is yesterday’s news. That leaves Kiffin, Colorado’s Deion Sanders, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, and Oregon’s Dan Lanning as the most compelling CFB coaches this season.
Like any good movie villain, Kiffin’s got wisecracks. When ESPN’s Holly Rowe interviewed Kiffin at halftime with LSU holding a 31-3 lead, he could have given a canned answer. Instead, he couldn’t resist trolling the SEC. “Imagine if we had pro players,” he noted. The SEC didn’t find that so funny. The conference lawyers are using his quip as evidence against LSU.
During College GameDay, Kiffin commiserated with ESPN bad boy Pat McAfee about being the “two most hated people there are.” And what a coinkydinky: His fiery Us-Against-The-World speech to his team at halftime somehow leaked to the public. “The whole fucking world hates you,” screamed Kiffin.
You can tell what coaches have motion by how they’re covered by the media. A few years ago, Sanders was the story in Colorado. Weekday studio shows such as Stephen A. Smith’s First Take and Skip Bayless’s old Undisputed fought to interview Sanders at the Buffaloes stomping grounds in Boulders. Now Kiffin’s new empire in Death Valley is the place to be.
LSU issued a record 900 press credentials for kickoff of the new Lane Kiffin era Saturday night in Baton Rouge. My FOS colleague Amanda Christovich says there wasn’t an empty seat in the press box. Kiffin entered Tigers Stadium like a WWE heel, flanked by celebrities such as Livvy Dunne, Brooks Nader and Theon Vonn.
After witnessing the rock star-adoration showered on Kiffin, can anybody argue he was wrong to leave Ole Miss for greener pastures at LSU? Kiffin being Kiffin, he engineered his departure in the most awkward and infuriating way. But his current situation at LSU just seems bigger and better. It’s the best opportunity he’s ever had to escape Saban’s long shadow and win his own national championship.
If that means embracing the power of the dark side to become the new Saban, then Kiffin’s willing to go there. As ESPN reported this week, he’s installed a sign in the Tigers’ locker room that reads: “If you want to win at the highest level, you have to become a villain in someone else’s story.”
