LSU Is on Its Own Against Ole Miss, Fan Data Shows
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It’s Lane Kiffin and the LSU Tigers against the world.
All right, so maybe not the entire world. Still, according to fan data compiled by BetOnline Sports & Casino, it is pretty close.
A study analyzed more than 1 million geotagged X posts from the past two weeks to determine which states were rooting for LSU or Ole Miss in Saturday’s massive SEC showdown. The data looked at tweets, hashtags and direct keyword phrases indicating which team fans were supporting.
The outcome was pretty much totally tilted towards Ole Miss.
Louisiana was the only state where LSU had the majority of the support.
That’s a remarkable backdrop for a game that already has plenty of drama.
Kiffin is returning to Oxford for the first time since leaving Ole Miss after the 2025 season to take the main job at LSU. He led the Rebels for six seasons, took the program to the College Football Playoff and then made the move to Baton Rouge. Now, he’s walking back into Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on the visitor’s side of the field.
The stakes are high beyond the rivalry, too. Both teams enter at 2-0 and ranked in the top 10, with LSU currently a short road favorite. The market has the Tigers around -3 with the total near 59 points.
This is the kind of game that can define the early part of Kiffin’s LSU tenure.
LSU Could Make a Statement in Oxford
If LSU walks out of Oxford with a win, suddenly all of the noise surrounding Kiffin becomes much easier for the Tigers to ignore.
That is because the hiring of Kiffin was never supposed to be about simply making LSU entertaining.
It was about putting the program back among the SEC’s elite.
A victory over a top-10 Ole Miss team, on the road, in Kiffin’s first return to his former home, would provide immediate credibility to that decision.
LSU has already shown flashes of what Kiffin wants to build. The Tigers opened the season by beating Clemson and followed that with a 45-14 victory over Louisiana Tech. The next step is proving that they can win the games that carry significantly more weight.
Kiffin knows Ole Miss. He knows the personnel. He knows the environment.
But Ole Miss knows Kiffin, too.
That makes this showdown much more than another SEC road game.
If LSU wins, the Tigers can walk out of Oxford with something far more valuable than another victory. They can walk out with proof that the Kiffin era is already delivering.
A Loss Would Put Kiffin Under the Microscope
The opposite is also true.
If LSU loses, nobody should suddenly declare the Kiffin experiment a failure. It would be one game in September.
But it would invite scrutiny.
The Tigers did not hire Kiffin to finish second-best in the SEC. They hired him because they believed he could elevate the program and compete for championships.
Losing his first return trip to Ole Miss would immediately give his critics something to work with.
And the circumstances would make it even harder to dismiss.
LSU is favored and Kiffin knows the opponent.
The game is receiving enormous national attention.
And the Tigers have already spent much of the offseason surrounded by controversy, including legal and eligibility disputes involving former Ole Miss players who followed Kiffin to Baton Rouge. Ole Miss recently served LSU defensive end Princewill Umanmielen with legal papers related to a breach-of-contract lawsuit, adding another layer to an already heated matchup.
LSU does not need to win because every other state is rooting against it. It needs to win because this is exactly the kind of game the Tigers hired Kiffin to win.
And if LSU can silence Oxford in the process, the noise surrounding this program might finally start working in its favor.
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