In the midst of a press conference that oscillated between revivalist pep rally and convenient disingenuous recreation of reality on Monday, Lane Kiffin told a very real story that highlighted the absurdity of this whole sordid tale.
After deciding to leave Ole Miss for LSU and finally and firmly being shown the door by administrators in Oxford, Mississippi, Kiffin and his son, Knox, made their way to the airport to head to Baton Rouge.
Angry fans not only met him at the airport; some, Kiffin claimed, chased him down the highway. “I thought they were going to run me off the road,’’ he said.
So concerned was Kiffin that he phoned a friend, a local police officer, to make sure he made his way to the tarmac safely.
“That affects you,’’ he said. “That airport scene? All of those things being said about you, and you think you’ve done a great job for six years.’’
Mere hours later, Kiffin emerged from the plane in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, greeted by LSU’s top brass and fans who behaved as if they had just experienced the rapture.
“And it all went away,’’ Kiffin said of his earlier angst.
And really, let’s just think about that entire scene and remember what it is that Lane Kiffin does for a living.
He is not the villainous traitor who has pillaged the people of Oxford. Nor is he the savior that the state of Louisiana believes is currently walking across its bayous.
Not Judas, and not Jesus. He’s a football coach. That’s it. He coaxes 18 to 22 year old young men to chase around an oblong piece of pigskin on fall Saturdays.
The addendum, of course, is that Kiffin coaches in the SEC where football is religion and he can, in the span of a 300-mile ride down I-55, shed his black hat and emerge wearing a white one. One person’s roadkill is another’s trophy.
Kiffin said he hoped some day that bygones would be bygones and that “time could heal.’’
LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry acknowledged that the path to the press conference had been a bumpy one that presented unique challenges – namely that Ole Miss would have liked to keep its head coach as the Rebels make their first playoff appearance – but that LSU had done “what is best for Louisiana.’’
That, at least, was true.
Except evidence has proven that time will not, in fact, heal.
Ask Tennessee fans, who were similarly jilted by Kiffin when he left after 14 months for USC. Or call up the press conference from Al Davis, who fired Kiffin as head coach of the Raiders and called him a “flat-out liar” in the process.
Hell hath no fury like a football fan scorned.
But now that it’s over, now that Kiffin has bought a new purple tie and Ole Miss has elevated a new head coach, it is fair to pick through the detritus and figure out what started this soap opera.
Kiffin is certainly not the victim here. He solemnly explained how he thought he was going to be coaching the Rebels through the playoffs up until 30 minutes before a scheduled team meeting and feels horribly that he was not able to. Nor is he the innocent rube he portrayed himself to be.
At one point, he insisted he has no idea how much money he’s making, explaining that the only numbers he cared about was the NIL compensation available for his players.
So maybe he covered up the paper when he signed the contract? The one that, reportedly it should be noted, includes the $1 million bonus he would have made at Ole Miss for reaching the playoffs if those meanies hadn’t kicked him out.
Ole Miss is not blameless, either.
Their staunch insistence that they wanted to do what’s best for the program and the players is hard to justify when, in fact, they could have finished the season with the coach who led the Rebels to their most successful season in more than 60 years.
Yes, Kiffin could have been working from the inside and poaching players, but guess what? He’s gonna do that, anyway, and at least Ole Miss might have had a better shot at a national title.
The real culprit, though, is the gluttony of college football.
The insatiable appetite to feed the beast has left no one minding the store. The actual machinations of the sport have been largely ignored while the very people purported to be the stewards of the game and higher education – commissioners, athletic directors and university presidents – are chasing the money.
The transfer portal window opens on January 2. Early signing for high school players begins this week. The college football season doesn’t end until January 20. It is a scheduling disaster, forcing coaches and players to make decisions about next year’s roster before this year’s team is finished.
Yet moving the portal window to spring – not only after the season is well over but the academic year (remember that?) is, too – has been met with resistance because whatever would teams do without everyone around for winter practice and spring ball?
Instead, we have football’s version of the holiday shopping season every December, where unregulated agents shop their players around to see who might want them when the portal (wink, wink) opens.
Additionally, the NFL has strict tampering rules and subsequent punishments to prevent the very thing that happened here – one franchise poaching a coach from another during the season.
As for college sports? What? I’m sorry. Couldn’t hear you over the cacophony about expanding the playoff field so the sport can make more money.
There is, of course, also the concept of old-fashioned decency and civility. Even, dare we say it, collegiality? Stop laughing. It once existed.
In 1957, Bear Bryant had led Texas A&M to an 8-3 record and a shot at national prominence when Alabama hired him. “Mama called,’’ the former Bama player said of his alma mater. But Bryant stuck around and coached the Aggies in the Gator Bowl.
Afterward, as detailed in the Houston Post, a player walked over to Bryant and said, “Coach, I just want to say thank you for letting me play for you the last two years. I just wanted to say goodbye and well, good luck, at Alabama.”
Presumably that is not what the folks in Oxford were yelling at Kiffin.
