Mississippi didn’t want to let coach Lane Kiffin stick around for the College Football Playoff. However, Ole Miss has decided to let its old offensive coordinator finish the job.
Via Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com, Mississippi will allow Charlie Weis Jr. to return for the playoff game(s) — and LSU coach Lane Kiffin is allowing it.
“With the playoff committee releasing updated rankings tonight, I wanted it to be known that after conversations with LSU, we are allowing Charlie to return to Ole Miss to coach the team during the playoffs,” Kiffin said in a statement. “I’ve already made the committee aware of this and I’m hopeful this decision will allow Ole Miss to receive the highest ranking possible because these great players are very deserving of that. I’m excited that Charlie will be back to help coach the greatest team in the history of Ole Miss.”
Kiffin had a clear incentive to boost the Ole Miss playoff standing, because LSU will be paying the bonuses Kiffin would have received from Ole Miss for playoff success. Mississippi had an incentive to allow it, because the school didn’t want to get dinged by the playoff committee for having a coaching staff in flux and chaos.
It’s still odd that Ole Miss allowed it. They didn’t want Kiffin to stay because it would give him access to players who can easily transfer. Now, Kiffin’s offensive coordinator will have that same access.
Likewise, anything the Mississippi offense does well will be free advertising for what the LSU offense could do, starting in 2026.
It sounds as if Ole Miss chose the lesser of two evils. And, at a time when Mississippi fans regard Kiffin as evil, there’s one less reason for them to hate him, even if he allowed Weis to return not for the good of the Rebels but for his own potential profit — whether by earning present bonuses or closing the deal on future transfers.
New LSU coach Lane Kiffin met reporters for the first time in Baton Rouge on Monday. And he made a pretty strong claim about fans of his former team at Ole Miss.
Via ESPN.com, Kiffin contends that a Mississippi fan tried to run his car off the road on the way to the airport.
“I think that people get really upset when you leave somewhere because they feel hurt because you’re doing a really good job,” Kiffin said. “They ain’t going to the airport and driving from all over to say those things and yell those things and try to run you off the road if you were doing bad.”
It’s a serious allegation. And it’s something that should be investigated and, if true, prosecuted.
The venom is understandable, and to a large extent unavoidable. Still, it’s hardly a reach to say Kiffin didn’t handle things the right way. He could have waited. Given the amount of money LSU is paying him, they would have waited.
Given that Kiffin wanted to stay and finish the playoff run proves that LSU would have waited. Unless, of course, Kiffin didn’t really want to stay. He may have known they weren’t going to let him stay, prompting him to use the school’s position as a way to take some of the sting out of leaving the Rebels high and dry.
If that was the plan, it didn’t work. Mississippi fans are pissed. Whether one of them is pissed enough to try to run Kiffin’s car off the road isn’t known with certainty. And probably will never be.
On Sunday, it was reported that former Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin had told the assistants he wanted to take to LSU that they had to get on the plane or get lost.
The reality is that they have more time. But not much.
Word is that they have until tonight to decide on whether to go. At that point, the vacant positions will be filled from the outside.
The fact that Mississippi instantly made defensive coordinator Pete Golding the permanent coach becomes a significant factor in the decision. There’s something to be said for security; if Golding was merely the interim hire, those who choose to stay wouldn’t know if they’d have a job in Oxford beyond the current season.
The “college football is in crisis!” crowd is punching air this morning.
LSU has signed new coach Lane Kiffin to a seven-year, $91 million contract. And his $13 million annual pay is just the base rate.
Based on the full term sheet, obtained by Wilson Alexander of the New Orleans Advocate, Kiffin is guaranteed to become the highest-paid coach in college football, if he wins a national championship. (Georgia’s Kirby Smart is currently the college football cash king, at $13.8 million.) Also, LSU will pay the playoff bonuses he would have earned at Mississippi, based on how Ole Miss performs in the College Football Playoff.
If fired without cause, Kiffin gets 80 percent of the unpaid balance — without any offsets based on subsequent employment.
Coupled with the $54 million buyout that will be paid to former coach Brian Kelly (an amount LSU tried unsuccessfully to get Kelly to reduce, both by dragging their feet over firing him and suggesting he could be fired “for cause”), that’s a $145 million commitment, minus the 20-percent potential buyout savings if/when LSU decides Lane is in fact lame.
It’s unclear whether there’s a fake Louisiana accent bonus in Kiffin’s contract. We’ll find out soon enough, when he makes his inevitable first appearance at an LSU basketball game.
Ole Miss didn’t have to search very long, or very far, for the replacement to former head coach Lane Kiffin.
Defensive coordinator/inside linebacker coach Pete Golding is taking over. And not on an interim basis. He’s the new, permanent head coach.
The move ensures a certain amount of continuity for the Rebels’ run in the upcoming College Football Playoff.
Golding, 41, arrived in 2023. He previously served as the defensive coordinator and inside linebacker coach at Alabama, from 2018 through 2022.
The Mississippi job is Golding’s first head-coaching stint. And his first big challenge will be to persuade some of the Ole Miss players to not follow Kiffin to LSU.
Which is one of the main reasons why Mississippi wanted Kiffin out, once he decided to go. And while the outcome is a symptom and not the disease when it comes to one specific form of college football chaos, Kiffin could have just accepted it and left — without whining about not being able to stick around.
