In a declaration as revelatory as water is moist, Lane Kiffin conceded in his Week 3 press convention that “quite a bit’s going to be made about me.”
Usually, faculty soccer followers have to attend till Thanksgiving weekend to get matchups with the type of venom prone to be evident between LSU and Ole Miss. However what most of these Rivalry Week video games cultivated over many years to instill unbridled disdain between fan bases, the Tigers and Rebels achieved in a speed-run.
Kiffin was right when he stated a lot can be manufactured from his return to Oxford, Mississippi, lower than 10 months faraway from his leaving Ole Miss for LSU. Lots was already produced from November 30 of final 12 months onward, in actual fact, with this encounter eagerly anticipated on the faculty soccer calendar.
The primary-year LSU coach’s makes an attempt to shift that focus to the matchup on the sector had been additionally what one would count on of any game-week presser.
“That is in regards to the gamers being ready very well and taking part in very well,” Kiffin stated. “[Ole Miss head coach] Pete [Golding is] not going to deal with anyone, [and] I’m not going to throw any touchdowns.”
True sufficient. And in faculty soccer maybe greater than every other sport, consideration oftentimes turns to the coaches on the sideline greater than the gamers.
On this occasion, nonetheless, shifting focus onto the athletes and away from the coach simply isn’t attainable when key contributors on one aspect are a part of the animus the opposite aspect feels.
Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss is attention-grabbing in that regard as a result of it’s a chance to see sure realities of the fashionable switch portal litigated on the sector. Kiffin is hardly the primary head coach to carry star transfers with him upon altering jobs because the rule modifications of 2021 successfully created an open market.
Kiffin isn’t even the primary coach to maneuver throughout the identical convention and take transfers with him. The 4 former Rebels who adopted Kiffin to Baton Rouge pales compared to the 21 gamers that left Marshall for Solar Belt Convention counterpart Southern Miss alongside coach Charles Huff in 2025.
However whereas Marshall and Southern Miss didn’t face off final season, destiny introduced LSU and Ole Miss collectively virtually instantly — and accomplish that at Vaught Hemingway Stadium.
Contemplating the gamers who joined Kiffin in his transfer at the moment are a few of LSU’s prime playmakers, their presence in purple-and-gold is an on-field manifestation of the jilting.
Linebacker TJ Dottery, the Rebels main tackler in 2025 with 98, racked up 9 within the Tigers’ Week 2 mauling of Louisiana Tech. Receiver Winston Watkins Jr., who hauled in 26 passes final season, has already caught 12 as a Tiger via two video games.
After which there’s defensive finish Princewill Umanmielen.
Two video games into the marketing campaign, Umanmielen has 5 sacks — most within the nation. The prospect of the previous Insurgent setting an LSU single-season sack report was alluded to Kiffin in the course of the coach’s press convention.
The coach’s response, intentional or not, has to rub salt in some very recent wounds.
“I’m glad he’s on our aspect,” Kiffin stated.
Not precisely the type of homecoming Ole Miss trustworthy would have preferred to have held for an All-SEC honoree who contributed to the Rebels’ School Soccer Playoff journey.
For his half, Golding — who stepped in as head coach for that Playoff run — analogized Saturday to a different sort of homecoming.
“To me, it’s like highschool homecoming for these dudes,” Golding informed reporters. “For those who give attention to the mistaken [things], that homecoming dance ain’t very enjoyable after you get your butt beat on a Friday night time.”
