Be boring? Lane Kiffin is anything but as he enters a new era at LSU

MAKING THE ROUNDS at SEC media days in July, Lane Kiffin patted his jacket pocket and joked that, inside, there was a card on which he had written a reminder to himself: “Be boring.”

Or, perhaps it wasn’t a joke. With Kiffin, it is exhausting to inform. Everything he says or posts on-line tends to return with a wink, a smirk and the historic context that suggests he could be filled with it.

Regardless, being boring was an unattainable purpose for a coach whose profession within the public eye suggests he’s incapable of conserving his hand out of the cookie jar. His willingness to say no matter is on his thoughts and do no matter it takes to get forward has made him, at various instances, the game’s most famed social media troll, most crucial truth-teller and most reviled villain.

Take, for instance, Kiffin’s departure from Ole Miss forward of final season’s College Football Playoff, a timeline he stated was necessitated by the game’s ill-fitting calendar.

Or think about Kiffin’s comments to Vanity Fair this spring when he stated recruits typically shunned Ole Miss due to its historical past of racial segregation, a downside he did not have at LSU.

Or observe Kiffin’s newest controversy as he appears to be like to make use of a handful of gamers who spent time in NFL camps — and even performed in NFL preseason video games — at LSU.

In extra delicate fingers, such commentary may need been the beginning of significant discussions on the ineptitude of NCAA governance or the methods the historical past of race nonetheless resonates within the South.

In Kiffin’s fingers, nonetheless, it was the kind of incendiary rhetoric for which he has lengthy cornered the market.

So no, Kiffin won’t be boring, even when he’s in search of any technique to script a extra palatable narrative for a way he arrived at LSU after a historic run at Ole Miss.

“I made a challenging decision and changed,” Kiffin stated. “And I thought I could make everyone understand. I thought I could get to a place where people said, ‘It’s OK, we get it.'”

No one acquired it.

Instead, all of school soccer rallied behind Ole Miss, viewing Kiffin’s departure as a betrayal, a money seize and one other occasion of the coach insisting the highlight stay squarely on him.

But what if he’s proper? What if the 2 different playoff head coaches and 5 coordinators who had already accepted different jobs acquired a free cross as a result of Kiffin needed to be the last word villain? And what if his departure for LSU was solely cheap, a factor some other coach put in the identical place would’ve finished? And what if Kiffin left for precisely the explanations he stated, a honest admission of an unrelenting want to claw his approach again to a blue-blood job that has pushed him because the evening in 2013 when USC left him at an airport tarmac?

“Lane has been very open, and if everyone would just listen to what he says, he tells you everything,” stated ESPN analyst Booger McFarland, who performed for Monte Kiffin, is a shut buddy of Lane’s and is an LSU alum who suggested the varsity throughout its teaching search. “You may not agree with his opinion, but he’s told you.”

Perhaps the world is just too accustomed to bashing Kiffin to see his standpoint. Or, perhaps, he is simply school soccer’s embodiment of the outdated “Seinfeld” truism: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

Either approach, Kiffin has arrived at a place the place everybody can at least agree about what’s now at stake. He selected LSU as the trail of least resistance to win a nationwide title. Now, anything wanting a ring can be proof he flew too near the solar, and a legion of critics will relish the prospect to observe him burn.

“I’ve built my life about pushing out of comfort,” Kiffin stated. “That may not be for everybody and that’s fine. But this job has really pushed me out of comfort. Everyone talks about the pressure of LSU and what comes with that. I enjoyed it.”

THE INTERVIEW THAT finally landed Kiffin in probably the most sizzling water — the one about racial divisions in Mississippi — was presupposed to final 45 minutes, he stated, but it went on for almost 4 hours. It was additionally, he stated, the lone interview he has finished since attending to LSU the place one of many faculty’s PR representatives wasn’t looming within the background, poised to drag again the reins when Kiffin acquired on a heater.

Be boring? No such factor.

Even Kiffin’s most avid critics admit the person can spin a yarn with the most effective of them when he decides to comply with an concept down a rabbit gap. That’s what occurred right here, he stated. He’d take all of it again if he might, and he meant no hurt.

Then he went down a kind of rabbit holes once more.

Kiffin had been on the airplane to Tampa the evening earlier than occupied with Hulk Hogan. He had watched a documentary on the wrestler, and the story ended with Hogan’s loss of life in July 2025 — lower than two weeks after Kiffin had misplaced his father.

“Growing up, there were two people I thought were never going to die — my dad and Hulk Hogan,” Kiffin stated. “But we’re all going to die.”

That Kiffin, at 51 years outdated, was simply now coming to phrases with the concept that all issues come to an finish underscores so most of the largest criticisms of his persona. His level, nonetheless, was that an appreciation of his personal mortality had made it simpler to disregard all of the criticism he had obtained for his phrases and choices and actions. But it is simple, too, to see a deeper which means.

By staring down the inevitable, Kiffin’s focus had sharpened, and he ultimately got here to this willpower: He was working out of time to be the individual he believed he wanted to be.

At his father’s funeral, Kiffin informed the gang that he’d begun his journey of self-improvement as a result of he wished his father to see the most effective model of him. The work continues.

“Losing a parent, as hard as that is, I think it helped mature him and put him in a better headspace,” stated LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry.

Kiffin has given up ingesting. He has prioritized his well being, waking up early for morning yoga earlier than arriving to the soccer facility at daybreak and spending the day shuffling round “in socks and gym shorts, talking football,” in line with Ausberry. He’s consuming more healthy. He has given up social media. Kiffin additionally says he has lower “toxic people” out of his life.

“As I look back over my life and my journey, a lot of great things have come when I’ve subtracted things,” Kiffin stated.

Take all these negatives away, nonetheless, and what’s left is this: Kiffin labored with Pete Carroll at the peak of the USC dynasty, and he labored with Nick Saban throughout Alabama‘s dominance of the game. He desires to be like them, and each Carroll and Saban urged him to take the LSU job.

Kiffin has completed a lot in his profession — the primary to serve as head soccer coach at three SEC colleges, he famous — but he acquired his dream job at USC when he was too younger, too immature, too centered on the fallacious issues.

That issues ended badly at USC is par for the course for Kiffin. His departure from the NFL’s Oakland Raiders resulted in an apoplectic rant from then-owner Al Davis, full with an overhead projector to doc Kiffin’s misdeeds. His departure from Tennessee was capped by one of the awkward and surreal information conferences in school soccer’s historical past. At Alabama, he was shoved out the door halfway by a playoff run. And, in fact, the Ole Miss exit was his coup de grace.

But USC — that one nonetheless stings.

“When he took that job [at USC], I remember how excited he was,” stated Yogi Roth, who labored with Kiffin with the Trojans in the course of the Carroll years. “He couldn’t believe he got it. And I think ever since then, he hasn’t really been at that pinnacle, hasn’t been at a place that’s ‘Oh my god, this is one of the greatest jobs in all of football.'”

LSU is a kind of jobs, and after 13 years of ready, it was irresistible to Kiffin.

“There’s grass-is-greener people,” Ole Miss coach Pete Golding stated. “They’re concerned about the perception of what the outcome looks like instead of really being where your feet are and enjoying the moment and what you’re building. And I really do believe he really thought you couldn’t consistently get the talent you needed here to compete for a championship [at Ole Miss]. I think he was caught up in the old school, USC, Bama thing.”

Now, Kiffin has lastly caught what he’d been chasing, for higher or worse. He has labored his approach from that airport tarmac to the penthouse, and he has watched his heroes die alongside the way in which. The clock is ticking. How many guys get a second probability at every part they’ve ever wished?

“Most people don’t get the opportunity to go back,” McFarland stated. “And you’d be crazy not to think, somewhere in his mind, he’s thinking, OK, what did I do last time that was wrong, and how can I learn from it now?”

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Finebaum: Lane Kiffin has put the strain on himself and desires to achieve the CFP

KIFFIN’S MISTAKE WHEN leaving Ole Miss, he stated, was merely being too optimistic. He thought he might have all of it — to educate the playoff, recruit his outdated gamers, take half the employees to his new dream job — and nobody would thoughts all that a lot. He acquired a name a few weeks after his departure from Dr. Kevin Elko, a self-help guru who has suggested Nick Saban and spoke at Monte Kiffin’s funeral. How, Elko requested, might anybody have believed he might spurn his employer, then stick round a few extra weeks to benefit from the spoils of the job? Leaving was cheap. Expecting Ole Miss to just accept it with a smile, although?

“There was no way to do what I was trying to do,” Kiffin stated.

And but, even as Kiffin is recalling his missteps 9 months faraway from when all of it went sideways, he nonetheless cannot fairly wrap his head round the concept that the Rebels could not see it from his standpoint.

“I was fighting so hard to try to coach [in the playoff], and it was close,” he stated.

He would not need to litigate this once more, he insists, after which he retains going.

“The [leadership] committee was in there,” he says of his final assembly with the staff. “More voted for it than voted against it.”

He understands now why Ole Miss AD Keith Carter would not think about the plan to let him coach within the playoff, he says, but if he might’ve simply stayed anyway …

“When you’re in it, you think, ‘No, this can work,'” Kiffin stated. “And maybe it could’ve.”

With somebody who wasn’t Kiffin, perhaps it might have. But when has Kiffin ever gone quietly? When has he ever left a place with out a path of controversy in his wake? When has he ever crossed a bridge with out taking a flamethrower to it when he reached the opposite facet?

And, positive sufficient, Kiffin lived up — or down — to the expectations.

“The issue wasn’t him leaving,” Carter stated. “It’s how it went down. Burning it down as he left.”

Kiffin recruited his former gamers exhausting. He introduced a cadre of Ole Miss coaches, together with offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., with him. With every new playoff recreation for the Rebels, there have been questions on how for much longer he’d permit his LSU employees to maintain teaching his outdated staff. Golding had insisted none of it was the explanation Ole Miss misplaced to Miami within the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, but an incompletion ultimately zone was the distinction within the recreation, and it is simple to see a state of affairs the place a month of teaching and personnel chaos created simply sufficient fracture to value the Rebels a shot at a nationwide title.

In the aftermath, Golding used the venom directed at Kiffin as his main recruiting device, telling QB Trinidad Chambliss and tailback Kewan Lacy to Google their former coach’s identify and see how hated he was in Oxford. They might depart Ole Miss with a legacy that made them beloved or they might be Kiffin. Both stayed.

Months later, Walker Jones, director of the Ole Miss collective, revealed that coaches had managed a number of textual content chains to withhold data from the departing employees amid recreation prep, and an FBI agent was introduced in to comb the Rebels’ soccer facility for bugs. To the individuals who knew Kiffin finest at Ole Miss, no measure appeared past the pale if he thought it’d give him an edge.

And but, even after enduring the worst of the backlash, Kiffin remained baffled by it.

“I could’ve let none of [the assistant coaches] go,” Kiffin stated. “Ask how that Georgia game [in the Allstate Sugar Bowl] would’ve went. They should’ve been appreciative.”

The approach Kiffin sees it, Golding acquired a head teaching job, gamers acquired huge contracts, and the assistants caught within the center all acquired a increase. Everyone got here out a winner.

Why is not it seen that approach?

Or, maybe, how is it doable Kiffin nonetheless would not get it?

“At the end of the day, the dude actually has a good heart,” Golding stated. “I really believe that. Now, is he going to make decisions based on his competitive advantage and how he’s affected by that? F—ing right he is.”

THERE ARE NIGHTS when Kiffin and Weis have been within the workplace speaking soccer for extra hours than they’ll rely, they usually want an escape. The conversations then flip to one thing esoteric, theoretical — down one other rabbit gap. Often, the pair begin unspooling the threads of their careers, grappling with these butterfly results that led them right here.

“Some really crazy stuff has happened to get us to this point,” Weis stated.

It’s a legitimate debate as as to if it was future that stoked all of the drama, or Kiffin himself. Still, it is exhausting to not recognize the sum of all these flaps of butterfly wings that, when considered by a sure lens — the lens by which Kiffin all the time appears to see the world — the items all match collectively good.

The Raiders stint? On-the-job coaching for a world of wage caps and free company in school soccer.

The USC job? A take a look at run for his subsequent big-boy alternative.

Understudy to Saban? That’s simply studying from LSU royalty.

Kiffin’s run from the dearth of status of FAU to the brink of the playoff at Ole Miss may as properly have been a metaphor for his personal private journey, proper?

“I always knew [Kiffin] was a good football coach,” Ausberry stated, “but I watched him, and he’s matured. He’s ready to be LSU’s coach now.”

Ausberry wasn’t solely bought on hiring Kiffin, he stated, till they met face-to-face. A handful of LSU energy brokers flew to speak with Kiffin — not about soccer, Ausberry stated, but moderately to really feel out what the connection may appear like.

“It was, let me know what you need to be successful, and I’ll tell you our expectations of you,” Ausberry stated.

That checklist, Ausberry stated, did not embrace successful huge from the soar, but Kiffin is approaching the job as if it had.

Kiffin inked three five-star recruits in his 2026 signing class. He landed one of many prime portal lessons within the nation, together with QB Sam Leavitt. And, regardless of his league’s strenuous objections, he’s all-in on including a pair of NFL gamers to his roster, too.

That’s why he’s right here. At LSU, Kiffin is grasp of all he surveys, and Ole Miss, for all his success there, could not supply him that very same scope of affect.

“You’re talking about a superteam he can build here,” Ausberry stated.

Kiffin has stated he’s not a fan of gamers with NFL expertise getting one other shot in school, but if there’s a loophole which will permit it, he’s going to take benefit. And but, these gamers — tight finish Dae’Quan Wright and defensive finish Junior Tuihalamaka — are in Baton Rouge, in line with two sources with data of the method, as a result of Kiffin helped curate the lawsuits that opened the door to their eligibility. Kiffin noticed a chance, and he seized upon it. Everyone from Greg Sankey to Dabo Swinney have railed towards the choice, but is this actually a ethical failing or is it a coach’s obligation to do all he can, inside what few guidelines stay, to win?

“There’s a level of competitiveness that only certain people have, and he’s one of them,” Weis stated. “He wants to be great. He wants to be a national champion.”

Or, maybe, as so many critics appear to consider, he desires what he desires, and little else issues.

“He can’t help himself,” one former colleague stated.

So, perhaps Kiffin is the villain. Maybe coming to LSU not solely opened the door to reaching his wildest desires but additionally solidified his place as the unhealthy man on this story.

Or, for a coach whose journey has already survived extra twists and turns and self-inflicted wounds than any in current reminiscence, perhaps it is simply one other chapter in a saga that has no mounted finish level.

People die. Kiffin has accepted that. His time will come to an finish someday, too. But legacies stay on, and greatness comes at a value.

“Sometimes the difference between the hero and the villain isn’t very far apart,” Kiffin stated. “And it changes. When you’re trying to do things at the highest level, sometimes people want you to apologize for what you’re doing when you’re chasing greatness.”