By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – When Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin first spoke to then-Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin about its head coaching vacancy, it came with a caveat.
No matter who Florida chose, Stricklin said he was going to hire a former NFL general manager to oversee roster and contract management, recruiting, the personnel department, and football operations.
Kiffin, 50, introduced as LSU’s new head football coach at a press conference in Tiger Stadium on Monday afternoon, recalled what freshly minted Tigers’ athletic director Verge Ausberry said when he spoke to Kiffin for the first time about the LSU job opening.
“I’m going to leave you alone and let you coach the team . . .we’re going to give you everything to win, and I’m going to leave you alone and go coach the team and bring us championships,” Kiffin said Ausberry told him.
Besides having a commitment from Ausberry for a generous portion of NIL money (an estimated $25 million to $30 million) to stock a championship-contending roster, it’s all Kiffin needed to hear.
It also helped that former Kiffin bosses Nick Saban (Alabama and also at LSU where he won the 2003 national championship) and Pete Carroll (USC), as well as Kiffin’s agent Jimmy Sexton, all told him LSU was the best job in college football.
Then, Kiffin made the stunning decision to leave No. 7-ranked and certain College Football Playoff invitee one-loss Ole Miss to take over the struggling 7-5 offensively challenged Tigers.
“Nick Saban taught me,” Ausberry said, “that you don’t ask great coaches, `Do you know what you gonna do on third and eight?’ It’s more like `We want you to be our coach here. What do you need to be successful? What do you expect from me as athletic director? What do you expect from LSU? We want you to be our coach here. Do you want to be at LSU?’
“That was pretty much the conversation.”
Kiffin, who signed a seven-year contract worth $91 million, repeatedly shared during the press conference the difficulty he had in deciding to leave Ole Miss after six seasons.
He led the Rebels to a 55-19 record (32-17 SEC), including three wins in five consecutive bowl trips (two of them New Year’s Six Bowl appearances) and a pending CFP berth.
Kiffin described his stay in Oxford as “the best six years of my life.”
But as his name heated up at the top of LSU, Florida and Penn State coaching searches, Kiffin began considering the possibility of moving. He reflected on the nomadic 58-year coaching career of his late father Monte, who coached for seven colleges and eight NFL franchises.
“I never understood why as a kid we moved so much,” Kiffin said. “Then, the amount of people that reached out to me that were at his funeral (in July 2024) wrote letters, wrote notes to me, found my number, texted me, was amazing from all the different places that he went.
“It became apparent to me that he went to all of those different places so he could connect with all those people, impact all those people, be impacted by all those people at the different places.
“As I thought about that, even with the best six years (at Ole Miss), it became apparent to me what the decision was. My journey (14 previous seasons as a head coach at five schools) has been unique.
“But I believe everything that I’ve been through has prepared me for this moment at this place right now. I also believe everything happened exactly how it was supposed to happen, when it was supposed to happen. That will be clear someday that all of it did.”
Enraged Ole Miss fans aren’t buying Kiffin’s philosophical rationale. They were so angry at his departure that he claimed some of them attempted to run him and his son Knox off the road as they drove to the Oxford airport on Sunday to board waiting LSU charter jets bound for Baton Rouge.
He admitted that while he’s accustomed to SEC fans living and dying with their teams, he was unnerved by the angry mob cussing him and flipping obscene gestures as he, his family and support personnel boarded the planes.
“That airport scene and all the things being said, I understand it,” Kiffin said. “It’s the passion, but they’re saying that about you. You thought you did a really good job for six years for them. I’m human. That affects you.
“Even on the plane down here, I’m kind of like, `Man, we made this decision.’ But when we landed here and I got off the plane and I saw the leadership there (LSU’s Board of Supervisors, political officials, NIL investors), I felt the power of this place.
“Then you go by Tiger Stadium, and it’s lit up. You walk in the football facility, and it’s like we’re in the NFL. You are reminded you are at the elite program in all of college football. I absolutely made the right decision, and it (the trepidation of his decision) all went away.”
He said interim coach Frank Wilson, who worked on Kiffin’s staff in his lone year at Tennessee in 2009, will coach LSU in the bowl game. Kiffin’s immediate priority is early signing day on Wednesday, filling out his coaching staff and support personnel and then the transfer portal signing period that starts Jan. 2.
After Ole Miss defensive coordinator Pete Golding was named as Kiffin’s successor on Sunday, no Rebels’ defensive assistants are expected to join Kiffin’s LSU staff. He already made it clear he wants to retain Tigers’ defensive coordinator Blake Baker, a Tulane grad who interviewed on Monday for his alma mater’s head coaching vacancy created by Florida hiring the Green Wave’s Jon Sumrall.
So far, he’s hired from his Ole Miss staff offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., co-offensive coordinator Joe Cox, wide receivers and passing game coordinator George McDonald, inside wide receivers coach Sawyer Jordan, head of strength and conditioning Nick Savage and senior executive director of player personnel Mike Williams.
“We’re going to sign the best players that we can on Wednesday,” Kiffin said. “Then go to the portal, which I have zero concern about the interest of players with that, because I know what the interest was of players nationally to come play for us where we were just at.
“Now, when you put that with this stadium and with that logo, it makes me want to get on the phone right now. But the portal is not open.”
Portal transfers, especially on offense, have flocked to Kiffin. The Ole Miss offense has ranked as the most prolific in the nation, leading the FBS in both yards per game (503.2) and total yards (37,235) since the beginning of Kiffin’s Ole Miss tenure in 2020.
Kiffin said he’s drawn offensive ideas from all of his head coaching stops as well as his stint as Alabama’s offensive coordinator. He also said hanging around “three of the best defensive minds ever to coach this game” – his dad, Carroll and Saban – gave him insight on what offensive concepts gave them the most trouble.
“A thing that we do extremely well is we don’t just think outside the box,” Kiffin said. “We create a new box. We’re always looking for new ideas, trying to figure things out. That started years ago with the innovative offense and changing the style of offense that we played over the years, having a unique offense that I don’t feel like is anywhere else in America by the system that we have and how it’s run.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com