What Everyone Is STILL Getting Wrong About The Lane Kiffin Situation

It's been just over a month since Lane Kiffin took his talents to Baton Rouge and left Ole Miss in a lurch, but as things stand right now, he has hardly been missed in Oxford.

The Rebels keep winning in the College Football Playoff, making an improbable run to the semifinals with what is, effectively, an interim head coach in Pete Golding.

READ: Ole Miss Makes Improbable Run To CFP Semifinals

For as much praise as Golding and the rest of this Ole Miss staff deserve, I am seeing just as much, if not more, vitriol being dumped on Kiffin for leaving.

Let me make one thing clear before we continue: I am not the biggest Lane Kiffin fan.

That shouldn't exactly be a secret by now. I wanted him to come to Florida and he didn't.

What's more, he's handled his exit from Mississippi about as poorly as anyone could have imagined, and I'm fine with dunking on him for that (and have done so multiple times this holiday season), but anyone making fun of Kiffin for going to LSU because they feel as though he had virtually the same chance of winning a championship at Ole Miss are getting it dead wrong.

It's incredible that people are STILL getting this wrong.

Lane Kiffin's 2025 Ole Miss Rebels had a shot to win it all. They still do.

But it took him six years to get to this point. He could do it next year at LSU and set himself up for years afterward.

Ole Miss is a "window" program, meaning that they have to hit on the right evaluations in talent acquisition and have everything come together, much like they have this year.

There is no margin for error.

LSU's window is open as long as Kiffin is their head coach.

It's so much easier to build a championship roster every year at LSU than it is at Ole Miss.

There were reports that Ole Miss was willing to offer what LSU and Florida were offering in terms of roster budget, but those two schools would have just continued to "up the bag."

There is no limit to what a school like LSU is willing to spend, and it's a big reason why Kiffin went there in the first place.

He doesn't have to decide between a top-ten recruiting class and a top-ten transfer portal class. He could have top-five in both every year.

On top of that, people act like none of what's happening at Ole Miss right now is because of what Kiffin built in the first place.

That roster and staff are both his, and it's foolish to think he can't do the same or better while at LSU.

Saying he left a title contender to go to a school who lost five games last year is asinine and shortsighted; Kiffin IS the title contender, and he can build what he built at Ole Miss much easier and much more sustainably at LSU.

It pains me to say it, because there aren't many coaches I want to see succeed less than Kiffin, but facts are facts.

Kiffin will likely win and win big while in Baton Rouge, and he knows it.

There is no buyer's remorse from Lane Kiffin, and I'm sure he's reading the comments on social media and laughing in his pile of millions as we speak.

The sooner everyone comes to grips with that reality, the better.