Josh Pate: Lane Kiffin 'Will Not Be At LSU For Ten Years'
That's just the nature of college football these days.
It's April, which means we are smack-dab in the middle of the college football offseason.
It also means we are in peak "hot take" season, and while I'm not accusing him of being a take artist, college football commentator Josh Pate had a pretty eye-opening comment on the most recent episode of his college football show.
When discussing which coaches from this year's hiring cycle would be the most successful a decade from now, Pate delivered his boldest take at the front of the segment about someone who is perhaps the most polarizing figure in college football right now.
READ: Josh Pate Shares List Of Most Hated College Football Teams, Makes Shocking Omission
Pate believes fairly confidently that Kiffin will win a national championship while coaching the LSU Tigers.
That isn't a bold prediction, though. Hell, I even think he will win one before he leaves Baton Rouge, and I hate LSU.
The real bold prediction came before his national championship proclamation.
"Lane is, I think, old enough to where if you've been earning eight figures per year for the next several years, like he's going to, I just don't think he's there ten years."
Sounds kind of crazy if you think he wins a national championship, wouldn't it stand to reason he stays at LSU for a while?
I mean, he did leave a cushy situation in Oxford to come to Louisiana, so this has to be the destination, right?
Not necessarily.
READ: Josh Pate Tells Hard Truth About Alabama: It’s Not Coming Back, It Never Will
This isn't even an indictment on Kiffin, though he does have a track record of jumping ship at a few places, but coaches just don't stay put as long as they used to. Even the successful ones.
For every Nick Saban or Dabo Swinney, there are guys like Urban Meyer, who won it all at two different stops but wasn't at either for more than seven years.
Even a coach like Jim Harbaugh, who won a national championship at his alma mater, Michigan, was only in Ann Arbor for nine years before returning to the NFL.
Both coaches, admittedly, had some baggage that may have caused their premature exits, but Kiffin has his own idiosyncrasies that may cause him to last less than a decade in Baton Rouge.
READ: Lane Kiffin's Pleas For Patience Will Fall On Deaf Ears In Baton Rouge And Beyond
Even the spot he's currently at has a history of discarding championship-winning coaches after they have outlived their usefulness.
Les Miles was in Baton Rouge for nearly a dozen years and won a BCS Championship in 2007, but rumors about his job security fired up as early as 2013 after a few disappointing years before he finally got the axe at the beginning of the 2016 season.
Then there's the case of Ed Orgeron, a home-grown Cajun who guided the Tigers to a historic 15-0 national championship season in 2019 with the help of now-NFL stars like Joe Burrow, Jamarr Chase and Justin Jefferson.
He was fired just one and a half seasons later for poor performance.
With all that being said, Pate's take suddenly doesn't seem as bold as it did on the surface.
I'm with Pate on Kiffin winning a natty. I think that's inevitable.
I also believe it's more of a possibility that the Lane Train departs Baton Rouge within the next seven or eight years, whether he wins a title or not.
That's the nature of college football these days.
Just enjoy who you have while you have them, because you never know what the future holds.