Lane Kiffin has finally made his decision.
No. 7 Ole Miss (11-1, 7-1 SEC) won the annual Egg Bowl, 38-19, on Friday and seemed poised to earn an at-large berth into the College Football Playoffs. Yet, the lure of coaching the LSU Tigers was too great, as it was reported today by multiple sources that Kiffin will be leaving to take over the Tigers.
Kiffin reportedly met with Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter on Saturday to get better clarity on the coaches’ future in Oxford.
The meetings continued into the night, with Kiffin expressing desire to remain in Oxford through the CFP. However, the higher-ups at Ole Miss would not budge, and reportedly told Kiffin that he would not be allowed to coach any further if he took the LSU job.
Kiffin will be taking over a LSU football program that entered the season as a Top 10-ranked team, with CFP aspirations. Instead, the team’s offense was historically bad, head coach Brian Kelly and offensive coordinator Joe Sloan were fired, athletic director Scott Woodward was let go, and Frank Wilson took over as interim coach. The changes didn’t help as LSU struggled to get to seven wins on the season.
Kiffin has been an assistant coach on three national championship teams, including USC (2003, 2004) under Pete Carroll and then Alabama (2015) under Nick Saban.
As a head coach, he has coached at Tennessee (2009), University of Southern California (2010-2013), Florida Atlantic (2017-19), and Ole Miss (2020 to 2025). In 14 seasons, Kiffin has a record of 116-53.
His most success has come at FAU and Ole Miss. He led FAU to a pair of C-USA championships (2017, 2019) and has led Ole Miss to two New Year’s Six bowl games, and now, likely a spot in this year’s College Football Playoff.