Lane Kiffin figures that if the attention of the college football world is going to be primarily on him this week, he might as well use that to his advantage.
Emotions are bound to run as high as ever in Mississippi’s Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday evening, when the No. 8 Rebels (2-0) host the coach who spurned them late last season and now has No. 7 LSU (2-0) off to a strong start.
“I guess there’s real safety issues and stuff. So, there’s people that have a plan for that. It is what it is,” Kiffin said. “But I told the players today, man, like, ‘You don’t have anything to worry about as far as, like, attention on you all week. There’s just going to be so much attention, hatred — everything — on me.’”
“Really, the pressure is on them,” Kiffin continued, alluding to Ole Miss’ appearance in last year’s national semifinals, and the fact that quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy — both viewed as 2026 Heisman Trophy candidates — are back with the Rebels.
“We won seven games last year; they won 13,” Kiffin said. “They return two Heisman candidates. How often does that ever happen in the same backfield?”
It’s rare, but Kiffin knew of at least once instance. That was back in 2005, when he was an assistant under Pete Carroll at Southern California. The Trojans had Matt Leinart at QB and Reggie Bush at running back.
By mentioning Chambliss and Lacy, Kiffin was in a sense touting his own legacy at Ole Miss, where he coached for the previous five years. And Kiffin seemed to wish that instead of spewing vitriol at him, Mississippi fans would reflect more on how much better off their program was when he left than when he arrived. Similarly, Kiffin mentioned that he was the one who sought out and hired his Ole Miss successor, Pete Golding, as defensive coordinator in 2023.
“There’s not always a winner and a loser,” Kiffin said while referring to his decision to leave for LSU last Nov. 30, when the Rebels were about to enter the College Football Playoff.
Kiffin pointed out that Saturday’s Magnolia Bowl between LSU and Ole Miss will be the first since 1962 to take place when both teams were ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll.
“That says to me it’s the most relevant matchup of these two teams in 64 years,” Kiffin said. “So, I think that’s a really neat thing that we were able to be part of building a program (in Mississippi) that Pete’s doing a great job of continuing it as a top-10 program.
“When we got there, they had won four games (in 2019). And when we got here eight months ago, (the Tigers) were 7-6,” Kiffin said. “So, I think it’s a really good thing that I think a lot of people could look at it and say, ’Hey, both sides are doing really well, and both sides won.’”
There can be only one winner this weekend, and Kiffin acknowledged the novelty of a participating in a matchup featuring “one team that you built and now a new team that you’re building — probably a really unusual situation that way.”
And Kiffin figures paranoia is running high within each program because of how much each staff knows about the other.
“I’m sure both places are already worried about leaks within the building getting game plans out,” Kiffin said, perhaps in reference to recent revelations that Ole Miss conducted a sweep of its facility for recording devices after Kiffin left Oxford.
“I know, obviously, a lot’s going to be made about me,” Kiffin said. “But this is about the players being prepared really well and playing really well. I’m not going to tackle anybody. I’m not going to throw any touchdowns.”
No, he won’t. But he’ll have plenty to do with what happens on the field, and off, during a game that will be widely watched and long remembered.
