Lane Kiffin couldn’t help himself during halftime interview: ‘Imagine if we had pro players’

Lane Kiffin couldn’t help himself during halftime interview: ‘Imagine if we had pro players’

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Lane Kiffin couldn’t help himself during halftime interview: ‘Imagine if we had pro players’
Lane Kiffin
Sep 5, 2026; Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA; LSU Tigers head coach Lane Kiffin watches game play against the Clemson Tigers during the first half at Tiger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

Perhaps the biggest storyline heading into the college football season was Lane Kiffin and LSU’s attempts to add several players to their roster who have already signed professional contracts and spent time with NFL teams this preseason – a move that sparked widespread outrage through the college football world.

While an injunction would have allowed LSU to roster those players and play them against the Clemson Tigers in the season opener on Saturday, Kiffin and LSU ultimately opted not to put them on the roster for the game. They certainly did not need them in the 51-10 win, as Kiffin cheekily pointed out.

During a halftime interview with LSU up 31-3, Kiffin couldn’t resist throwing a cheeky comment about all the discourse leading up to the game, telling ESPN’s Holly Rowe, “Imagine if we had pro players.”

When asked about the comments after the game, Kiffin said he wasn’t worried about the public reaction, claiming everyone already hates him.

“What’s the difference?” Kiffin said during his postgame press conference. “Everybody hates you. They can’t hate you that much more. So there you go. You got another line.”

This mirrored comments Kiffin made to Pat McAfee during an interview on College GameDay, where he thanked the ESPN star for his friendship and said they are “the two most hated people there are.”

While the whole situation has been a massive storyline, with the SEC even filing a lawsuit against LSU and reportedly exploring the possibility of expelling the school from the conference, Kiffin was glad that the storyline didn’t loom over the outcome of the game

“I’m just really glad they played the way they did, so that wouldn’t have been the story,” Kiffin said after the game. “Because I get it. … Even if we won close and kind of ugly, the whole story would have been, ‘Man, I screwed the team up by doing this.’ And I said this morning, ‘You can not agree with it. I’ve been criticized heavily for the last two weeks saying I did that.'”

“But my job is not to please you and worry about what you’re going to write. My job is what I believe is right, and I believe we’re fighting for what was right for those kids,” Kiffin continued. “I’m not going to get into all the reasons, but that’s what I believe. And so many people don’t like that, but they don’t understand that.”

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