Last college football season saw the Ole Miss Rebels make the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history. Unfortunately, the Rebels’ playoff run was a controversial one, as Lane Kiffin and several other members of the coaching staff departed the program prior to the Playoff beginning to join the LSU Tigers, where Kiffin was hired to replace Brian Kelly.
Many felt that it was unprofessional and disrespectful for Kiffin to leave Ole Miss so abruptly, especially with the Rebels still competing for a national title at the time. However, Kiffin, who signed a $91 million contract to lead LSU, recently spoke to Vanity Fair about his decision, and had some interesting insights into what went the choice.
“Kiffin also seems willing to indirectly invoke Ole Miss’s struggle to distance itself from symbols like the Confederate flag,” VF’s Chris Smith wrote after speaking with Kiffin.
Per Smith, Kiffin said that Ole Miss’s ties to the confederacy led to recruiting challenges.
“Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi,” one recruit reportedly said.
“That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” Kiffin said. “Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’s diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.’”
There’s no denying that even without the challenges that he had to overcome at Ole Miss, LSU has an abundance of resources that most programs across the country have no chance to rival. However, between the timing of his exit and the massive contract he signed, the pressure is on Kiffin like never before. Only time will tell if he or LSU made the right choice.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.