Lane Kiffin reveals what he would change about ugly Ole Miss exit

Lane Kiffin admitted he would’ve changed how he left Ole Miss for LSU last season when reflecting on the ugly exit. Kiffin strung along fans, players and administration alike before he ultimately decided to coach the Tigers.

But while he chose LSU over Ole Miss, he wanted to finish a run at the CFP with the Rebels. Ole Miss didn’t allow it and new head coach Pete Golding, who was internally promoted, led them to two wins and nearly a third in the CFP semifinals against Miami.

Instead of fighting to stay, before he left anyway, Kiffin said he would’ve just left respectfully and gone straight to LSU without the extra drama. Although it might not have stopped some of the hate he got for vacating Oxford.

“Yeah, I think I would have just came in and said, okay, I’m leaving,” Kiffin said on Pardon My Take. “I’m very appreciative of everything. You know, I spent a lot of time right there fighting to coach the team, trying to keep everything together. Totally respect their decision … but I was trying so hard to keep that together, like, hey, let us all coach, let this whole thing, you know, let’s see if we can go win the whole thing. And so, obviously, that didn’t happen that way, which then created a lot of it, because that was the whole night and morning of that, and then what was going to happen, and then the team meeting moved back and all the things that went with it, and then you couldn’t have a normal team meeting, because at that time it had, you know, gotten into all that, and then you know, naming of Golding as the head coach.

“And so I mean, I don’t know how much it would have saved, just going in and saying, instead of trying to say, hey, I really want to go, hey, I’m not coaching, I’m taking the job … but I think you still would, you definitely would have had the airport scene, and all that.”

Kiffin is still amazed by the SEC itself. He went from loved to hated and hated to loved in the span of 24 hours at two different institutions.

“But as tough as that is, on so many parts, from on them, on me, on walking with a 12 year old nephew that they’re yelling at, all that stuff, that also speaks to the SEC,” Kiffin said. “Where else does that happen? That the people that, for six years, loved you, want to build a statue, chant for you at the last game to stay, and then they hate you like that? And then you land here and the people here that when we’d play here were yelling at me, hate me and saying everything I did was horrible, ‘We love you.'”

Now, Kiffin and LSU head into 2026 with CFP and national title expectations with a ready-made roster through the transfer portal and recruiting. It’s on the “Lane Train” to get it done in Baton Rouge to prove once and for all he made the right choice.