Did Lane Kiffin succumb to 'human' emotions at Ole Miss? Depends who you ask
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Lane Kiffin left town a loser, and Mississippi tasted sweet vengeance throughout what the Rebels' ex-coach called a "really emotional" night for him.
Kiffin made a not-especially-triumphant return to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Despite the result, he said one of his top emotions was a sense of "gratitude," for the school and place where he spent six seasons as coach.
You buying that?
"You can’t predict your emotions,” Kiffin said . “Sometimes I don’t act like it, but I’m a human, too.”
On this edition of “College Football Unfiltered,” a USA TODAY Sports podcast presented by Sports Seriously, host Blake Toppmeyer and his colleagues John Brice and Matt Hayes bust out their lie-detector gear and dissect Kiffin's postgame comments after Ole Miss ran over LSU, then survived the Tigers' rally.
The Rebels won 32-24, and star quarterback Trinidad Chambliss announced himself as a Heisman Trophy frontrunner.
Did Lane Kiffin get overwhelmed by emotional return to Ole Miss?
Toppmeyer: I thought Lane looked off all night. Shellshocked, even.
As I wrote in some of my columns, he had this thousand-yard stare on his face, as Chambliss kept looking triumphantly toward the LSU sideline after Ole Miss touchdowns.
We've seen Lane, at different times during his career, really embrace these heel-turn moments, these WWE villain style moments. When he returned to Tennessee in 2021, he was almost egging on the crowd and the vitriol that Vols fans rained down on him. When he faced Nick Saban and Alabama — "Get your popcorn ready!" — he'd go down swinging like a madman.
Not this time.
On Saturday, Lane looked to me like he'd rather have been anywhere else but right there in that stadium. When he went back to Tennessee in 2021, it had been almost 12 years since he left. Whatever he once felt about Tennessee, he was long over it by then and just intent on getting a victory. Contrast that with Saturday night. He's coming back 10 months after he left a place where he spent six seasons, and the emotions ran deep and raw, on all sides. He said afterward he thought he'd embrace the moment more as a competitor, but that his emotions surprised him.
Kiffin came face to face with everything he walked away from at Ole Miss, all that he'd helped build. I think it shook him.
Hayes: Yeah, I'm not buying it. I love the way you laid it out, but I'm just not buying it. I think he acted the way he did because his team got down by three scores in the first half. That was the problem, not any emotions. He created a circus the past 10 months, and then he and his team got behind by three scores. That's all you saw.
If LSU goes in there and wins 30-13, he'd have been as obnoxious as ever. I think sometimes we overthink it with Kiffin. I really do. He's a great ball coach. No question about that. Away from the field, he is who he is. We try to make him out to be something he's really not. This is who he is, and that was just the look of a man down three scores.
Brice: I agree with Hayes. True, Kiffin looked very melancholy at times during that game, but if we're going to continue with this 'villain' theme, I think this was the portrait of the Joker being brought to his knees in this contest, and he never had the chance to flip the coin and laugh and do all the hijinks he does.
If Sam Leavitt had played better and LSU goes ahead in the first half, you would've seen Kiffin sprinting down that sideline, fist-pumping as always. I think he realized he helped build up Ole Miss, and now it's in an even better place with Chambliss dealing like he was. The Joker didn't get the last laugh.
Where to listen to College Football Unfiltered
Be sure to check out USA TODAY Sports' new College Football Unfiltered podcast, hosted by columnist Blake Toppmeyer. You can stream episodes on YouTube or download via Apple podcasts, Spotify or iHeart.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Did Lane Kiffin succumb to 'human' emotions at Ole Miss? Depends who you ask
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