One Quote From Lane Kiffin's LSU Press Conference Shows How Unserious A Person He Truly Is
The level of naivety from Kiffin is stunning.
Lane Kiffin was formally introduced as the next head football coach at LSU on Monday afternoon. As expected, the 50-year-old had some interesting things to say during his introductory press conference, including how he called former LSU coach Ed Orgeron to tell him how he felt the urge to talk like him since arriving in Baton Rouge, but there was one statement in particular that stands out among the rest.
Kiffin's Ole Miss exit could have very well been the ugliest, and was certainly the most drawn-out, in the history of college football. That is saying quite a bit, given the fact that we're talking about the same man who was once fired on a tarmac and also publicly ridiculed via an Al Davis slideshow when canned by the Oakland Raiders in 2008.
The Kiffin-led circus in Oxford carried on for well over a month, with most circling Ole Miss' loss at Georgia on October 18 as the official start date to the exhausting festivities. The Rebels went on to win the final five games of the regular season, put together their first 11-win campaign in school history, and set the expectation that they will host a College Football Playoff game later this month.
READ: Leaked Audio From Ole Miss Meeting Shows Rebels Aren't Too Mad About Lane Kiffin's Exit
Kiffin looked at all of that and not only decided he'd leave for one of Ole Miss' biggest rivals to try and rebuild things in Tiger Land, but also abandon his Top 10 football team and attempt to burn things to the ground on his way out of Oxford. Kiffin did not address the team before leaving, threw Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter under the bus in his word-vomit-filled statement, and reportedly gave an ultimatum to every coach on his staff that they better get on the plane with him to Baton Rouge, or they would not have a job at LSU next season.
Lane Kiffin and President Dr. Wade Rousse of the LSU Tigers speak at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport. (Photo by Gus Stark/University Images via Getty Images}
The word ‘ugly’ doesn't do the situation justice, but according to the man himself, his exit could not have gone down any better.
"It’s the only way I could describe it. It sucked for a lot of people," Kiffin said during his press conference t LSU. "And there was no way to possibly do it better than the way we did. From a timing standpoint, because it’s a bad scheduling system and how it’s set up. Eventually, hopefully it gets like the NFL where you can’t do that in the season and don’t have to make those decisions."
The college football calendar is an abomination, but two things can be true at once, and every single fact of the matter is that Kiffin's Ole Miss exit was an unmitigated disaster, and one that was entirely his own doing.
There was "no possible way to do it better?"
Kiffin dragged the process out as long as he possibly could, while the entire college football world knew for weeks that he was leaving for LSU, with the only question being when? The delay in his decision to leave his 11-1 football team weeks before the Playoff was centered around himself, and nobody else.
Kiffin wanted his cake and eat it too. (Photo by Roger Wimmer/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images)
Kiffin wanted to continue coaching this Ole Miss team in the Playoff while having already accepted the job to go coach the team's biggest rival not named Mississippi State. He wanted to try and win a national title at Ole Miss while his priorities were already in Baton Rouge and have first dibs at poaching players and staff to come with him to LSU the second the Rebels' season ended.
In no way, shape, or form does that circumstance benefit Ole Miss.
There was one way for Kiffin to coach Ole Miss in the Playoff, and that was to sign an extension and delay this inevitable charade another year. Instead, Ole Miss's athletic administration did what it absolutely had to do, and Kiffin elected to go try to rebuild a program that has a more iconic helmet.