Inside Lane Kiffin’s Chaotic Exit: Ole Miss Fallout and LSU’s Bold Hire

After plenty of drama, Lane Kiffin is the new head coach at LSU.

Kiffin leaves behind the Ole Miss Rebels as the No. 7 team in the nation just two days after their regular season finale against Mississippi State.

Now, defensive coordinator Pete Golding has been permanently elevated to replace Kiffin and coach the Rebels in the College Football Playoff.

Kiffin’s departure got ugly quickly. While he was the hottest name in this cycle, it feels like things didn’t need to end this way. Over the last six years, he rebuilt Ole Miss into a respectable college football contender in the SEC. They’re weeks away from appearing in the CFP.

So why did it need to be like this? What exactly is Kiffin chasing?

He was on the verge of cult hero status at Ole Miss. Now, he will try to mop up the mess left by Brian Kelly, who LSU fired after failing to live up to any expectations.

According to reports on Sunday morning, Kiffin was putting up a fight in order to be allowed to coach his team in the Playoff. The day somehow ended with Kiffin threatening his own offensive coaches to jump ship and follow him to LSU immediately or they would not have an opportunity to join his staff if they waited.

On3 reported that Kiffin told coaches that if they were not on his plane to Baton Rouge on Sunday afternoon, they would not have a spot on his staff.

Of course, this all happened as Kiffin postponed his team meeting to inform Rebels players that he was leaving the program. Additional reports stated that leadership members could not get a reply from their head coach, trying to get clarity on the situation.

While LSU is undoubtedly a bigger stage than Ole Miss and likely comes with a historic payday, this awkward exit at Ole Miss will follow Kiffin forever.

He posted on social media via his dog’s account hinting at a potential SEC championship game… just to leave one day later?

There’s nothing wrong with being selfish when it comes to employment. People should try and make every dollar they can. But this situation was publicly mishandled and put so many people in uncomfortable and unfortunate situations.

Ole Miss will be preparing for their first ever College Football Playoff game without the coach that got them there. A fun storyline would have been Kiffin staying in Oxford and winning a title. Now, the Rebels will be motivated to win one without him while he’ll be under plenty of pressure to deliver one for LSU.