OXFORD, Miss. — Jimbo Fisher didn’t whisper. He didn’t hedge. And he sure didn’t sound interested in protecting anyone’s feelings.
The former national title–winning coach delivered a blunt assessment of Lane Kiffin’s departure from Ole Miss while the Rebels remain alive in the College Football Playoff, calling the move selfish and wrong for the players still chasing a championship.
Fisher’s comments came as the Rebs prepare for the Fiesta Bowl semifinal against Miami, a game that arrives with far more baggage than most postseason matchups.
Ole Miss finished the regular season 11-1, won the Egg Bowl, and earned a CFP berth that once felt unthinkable in Oxford. Then, just days later, Kiffin left to take the LSU head coaching job.
He didn’t go alone.
Several assistants followed Kiffin to Baton Rouge, creating a strange overlap where coaches were connected to two programs at once. That overlap didn’t last long.
Interim head coach Pete Golding announced that receivers coach George McDonald and tight ends coach Joe Cox would not coach in the Fiesta Bowl, removing two familiar voices from a locker room already dealing with major change.
That decision is what pushed Fisher from observer to critic.
“It’s selfish. It’s stupid.”
Jimbo Fisher sounds off on Lane Kiffin not allowing some coaches to coach for Ole Miss in the CFP semifinal 👀 pic.twitter.com/6TodO50jbU
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) January 8, 2026
Fisher calls move selfish and stupid
Appearing on the ACC Network, Fisher didn’t dance around the subject. He labeled the situation in plain terms.
“It’s selfish. It’s stupid,” Fisher said.
Fisher framed the issue as more than a coaching carousel problem. To him, it was about players who spent an entire season working toward one goal, only to see the adults rearrange the furniture at the worst possible time.
“You can’t change the rules of the game in the middle of the game,” Fisher said. “Not for the staff, but because of the players.”
Fisher questioned whether decisions like this are truly about athletes or something else entirely.
“Is it really about them?” he asked. “Is it really about the athletes, or is it about the money and everything else?”
That question landed like a slow, deliberate jab.
Fisher also addressed Kiffin’s public comments about being viewed as a villain.
“Everybody says he thinks he’s made out to be the villain,” Fisher said. “He is right now, because that is wrong.”
The tone wasn’t personal. It was judgmental. And it was unmistakable.
Rebels rally despite coaching changes
What makes the criticism louder is what Ole Miss has done since Kiffin left.
Instead of folding, the Rebels responded. They beat Tulane. Then they knocked off Georgia in a CFP quarterfinal, a win that pushed them into the Fiesta Bowl and silenced plenty of doubts.
Fisher said the chaos didn’t hurt the team the way some might’ve expected.
“He thought his dysfunction of leaving would cause them the dysfunction,” Fisher said. “No, it united them.”
Fisher added that some coaches returned to help Ole Miss because they cared about the players, not the contracts.
“And those coaches went back because they loved the kids,” Fisher said, “and they did it.”
That, according to Fisher, is what makes pulling them away again so damaging.
Ole Miss now enters the Fiesta Bowl as the No. 6 seed, still standing despite a situation that could’ve easily fractured the locker room.
Jimbo Fisher has had enough of the Lane Kiffin Show in Ole Miss – with the key detail being that Kiffin is no longer the Rebels’ coach.
Read more: https://t.co/awRh8EFgLR pic.twitter.com/37FARfdOS1
— New York Post Sports (@nypostsports) January 8, 2026
Bigger questions linger for college football
Fisher’s comments cut deeper than one coach or one program.
They point to a larger issue in modern college football, where playoff expansion, early hiring cycles, and massive contracts collide with postseason games that matter more than ever.
Ole Miss is living inside that collision.
The Rebels are one win away from playing for a national championship, yet they’ve had to navigate a coaching transition that would’ve been unthinkable in previous eras.
Fisher didn’t offer solutions. He didn’t pretend the system is simple. But he did make one thing clear.
Players shouldn’t be the ones paying the price for business decisions.
As Ole Miss prepares for Miami in the desert, that message hangs in the air. The Rebs didn’t ask for this detour. They just kept winning through it.
Whether that’s enough to push them one step further will be answered on the field.
Key takeaways
- Jimbo Fisher strongly criticized Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss exit, calling it selfish and unfair to players during a CFP run.
- Ole Miss advanced to the Fiesta Bowl semifinal despite losing its head coach and dealing with staff changes.
- Fisher’s comments highlight growing tension between playoff success and coaching movement in college football.
