We're all addicted to the Lane Kiffin show as LSU coach rules SEC media days | Opinion
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
TAMPA, FL — He stood up there on the big stage, under the glaring light of every move analyzed and every decision over the last seven months scrutinized, and didn’t blink.
He was controlling this moment, like it or not.
For nearly 20 minutes of his 30-minute question-and-answer session Thursday, July 23, at SEC media days, Lane Kiffin executed a filibuster so masterful, it would’ve shamed even the most seasoned politician.
It left the assembled packed ballroom with all of four questions for LSU’s new coach to answer — after his offseason of burning it all to the ground.
“I can’t be so concerned about little things and what people say,” Kiiffin said. “You gotta make decisions, you gotta go with them.”
And just like that, we’re moving on.
Away from the ugly exit at Mississippi, and the ensuing culture bombs he dropped in a Vanity Fair interview, disparaging the university and a quaint southern town.
Away from trying to explain why he did it, or how he did it, before eventually relenting and admitting it was a poor choice of words.
Away from nearly two decades of an undeniable track record of mistakes and missteps. Away from clockwork controversy, for whatever reason at whichever job.
Because here’s the thing about the Lane Show: no matter how bad it looks, you can’t look away.
He always leaves you wanting more. He leaves everyone wanting more.
Players and athletic directors and university presidents. Fans and the media, and even the most casual of stragglers.
They all want a piece of him.
He has never won a power conference championship as a coach, yet Florida and LSU — two of college football’s bluest of blue bloods — were fighting to make him the highest-paid coach in the game.
He has never coached in a College Football Playoff game, yet Nike signed on to help build the LSU roster. That’s right, to literally help build the roster.
There are 12 LSU players with Nike NIL deals. No other college football team has more than eight.
Jordan Seaton, LSU’s massive offensive tackle, is the the first offensive lineman ever to sign a Nike deal — a multi-million dollar deal for a former five-star recruit who was part of a Colorado offensive line that gave up 71 sacks over the last two seasons.
But Kiffin went after him in the portal, and a player who struggled as a freshman and played only marginally better as a sophomore, signed a mega deal with LSU.
Sam Leavitt was closing in on a deal with Tennessee, but Kiffin needed a quarterback and full-court pressed a player who missed half of last season because of a significant foot injury.
A Lisfranc injury isn’t a simple broken bone or a strain. It’s a serious, unpredictable injury that had many schools backing away from Leavitt and questioning whether he could even play this season.
Not Kiffin. He signed him, and Nike hopped on and like some cosmic convergence of I told you so, Leavitt was cleared to play last month.
“That really goes into the blueprint of what we're building and what I said seven months ago when I took the job,” Kiffin said. “We're coming to LSU to sign the best players in the country.”
Meanwhile, he’s bobbing and weaving and filibustering at the media days circus, He’s talking depth charts and university alignment and, for the love of god, Hulk Hogan.
This is how it works in the Lane Show. He’s not the monkey, he’s the organ grinder.
He’s not dancing, you are.
Just so we don't get it twisted, he has more five-star high school recruits committed to play for LSU than he had in the previous six years at Ole Miss. Which is what this whole song and dance is about, anyway.
He left Ole Miss, left a championship-caliber team before the start of the CFP, because he believed he could get better players and have a better chance to win the whole thing at LSU.
The only thing left now is to do it.
“We’re going to make thing thing different than anywhere else to go,” Kiffin said.
And just like that, he leaves you wanting more.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB. Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: We're all addicted to the Lane Kiffin show as LSU coach rules SEC media days | Opinion
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos