LSU Tigers football coach Lane Kiffin, Vanity Fair face media backlash for Ole Miss hit piece

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LSU Tigers football coach Lane Kiffin, Vanity Fair face media backlash for Ole Miss hit piece originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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LSU Tigers football coach Lane Kiffin was the subject of a highly controversial feature story in Vanity Fair that reads like a hit piece on the Ole Miss Rebels, the University of Mississippi, and the Magnolia State at large. Vanity Fair’s official X account shared a snippet from the article that paints Oxford as a racially tense place compared to Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

“When he was coaching there, Kiffin says, top recruits would tell him, ‘Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi.’ That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’s diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation.’”

This piece, predictably, didn’t go over well in Mississippi. As 247Sports’ Chase Parham noted, the lede in Vanity Fair’s piece relayed a since-debunked story about Kiffin being run off the road in Oxford after he took the LSU job.

“Your lede includes a lie the Mississippi Highway Patrol publicly refuted and disingenuous imagery meant to increase emotion. May as well own you wrote a puff piece for access and click purposes,” Parham wrote.

On3’s Brad Logan, meanwhile, shared a video of 2023 defensive tackle commit William Echoles’ mother speaking about why Ole Miss felt like a safe home to her daughter before William ever committed. Logan added, “The confederate flag was banned in 1983.”

Slate’s Alex Kirschner believes this was “the most cynical thing Lane has ever attempted.”

Paul Finebaum doesn’t know if Lane Kiffin is ever being ‘sincere’

Perhaps the worst part about Kiffin’s penchant to be in the spotlight, for good deeds or otherwise, is that pundits in the know, like the SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum, don’t even know if it’s an act or not.

“After four hours of talking with Kiffin, I’m stumped: Is he endearingly sincere or so full of s–t that it’s an art form?” asked Vanity Fair’s Chris Smith, the author of the anti-Mississippi feature.

“I first met him in 2009, and I can’t decide either. Lane Kiffin is an introvert, and he’s a drama queen. He’s sincere, and he doesn’t get enough credit for his acting ability. It’s what makes him fascinating, and it’s what makes him the most polarizing coach in college football,” Finebaum said.

We’ll see how much more Kiffin will have to say, and how much more ragebait he has prepared for the Rebels fanbase, before LSU and Ole Miss clash on September 19 at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

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