By now practically every Ole Miss fan has heard the comments from former coach Lane Kiffin in his Vanity Fair article.
The ultimate, button-pushing, internet troll took some big shots at his former school and hometown, referencing some of the uglier parts of Ole Miss’ history.
In explaining his decision to leave Ole Miss for LSU, Lane Kiffin seems willing to invoke Ole Miss's struggle to distance itself from symbols like the Confederate flag, Colonel Rebel, and the nickname "Ole Miss" itself.
When he was coaching there, Kiffin says, top recruits would…
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) May 11, 2026
But a lot of people are also seeing this for what it is: an ex-coach, who is still hurt he didn’t get to have his cake and eat it too.
Plnety of national media personalities have chimed in on what Kiffin said about Ole Miss. ESPN’s Ryan McGee may have had the best take.
“I think it’s right on schedule,” McGee said during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show. “If you look at the Lane Kiffin playbook, we’re about halfway between SEC Media Days in the middle of July and the end of football. You used to be really careful with these things, because I’m of the age where I was a student at the University of Tennessee, and we used to play Ole Miss every year when I was a student. We played at the Liberty Bowl, but that’s back when Billy Brewer was the head coach there.
“They were begging the student body — I mean, the entire student section — to quit waving Confederate flags. So to know where that was, and to know the Oxford that I have experienced for the last 20 years, and to know the Oxford that Lane Kiffin sat down with me about a year ago this month and went on and on about — and knowing what Baton Rouge is, which is one of my favorite places on the planet, and knowing where the Tigers mascot came from — you’ve got to be really careful with these things.
“Acting like you moved from Mississippi to Berkeley, and then moved to Baton Rouge, that’s not really what’s happened.
“So, I’m not sure why you go down this road, other than the Lane Kiffin playbook is that he wants them to love him where he is, and he doesn’t really care if they still love him where he was.
“He will tell you that’s not the case, but everything he does tells you that this is just what he does.”
On3 national analyst Andy Staples were more perplexed as to why Kiffin chose to say what he said.
“The thing that I don’t know is if it wasn’t an issue for him or it happened once or twice during his tenure, why you would say that?” Staples said. “I’m still trying to figure out what the upside of that comment is in any context.”
“That’s something Ole Miss coaches have been answering for decades, including Lane Kiffin,” Staples said.
“But are LSU coaches not answering the same questions? I can tell you right now it’s something Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher had to answer [at LSU]. There was a perception that they were not the friendliest program to black players. Every SEC school you’re going to find that. I mean, they were the last to integrate. Every SEC school has had this. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, too, because we’re two white guys having a conversation about the cultural impacts of the Civil War on young African-American football players. And I don’t want to diminish that.”
Fellow On3 national analyst Ari Wasserman had a similar thought.
“I think a lot about things that coaches have said on the record over the course of my career and I’m kind of having a hard time thinking of something that was worse,” Wasserman said. “I think it was a highly controversial and unnecessary comment,” Wasserman said. “I don’t really know what there was to gain from it, what he thought was going to happen.
“And then, of course, it hit him after it was over with. But this is the exact reaction that I would expect. And frankly speaking, I will side with Ole Miss on this and probably say that it was uncalled for and unnecessary.”
All of this, what Kiffin said, what Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said, what we’ve said and what all the national analysts have said, just adds the spiciness of the September 19 game in Oxford between LSU and Ole Miss.
And now it’s a night game. Buckle up folks because this week is just a preview of what’s to come.
