LSU Tigers football coach Lane Kiffin could be punished by the SEC over Ole Miss comments in Vanity Fair
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LSU Tigers football coach Lane Kiffin could be punished by the SEC over Ole Miss comments in Vanity Fair originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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LSU Tigers football coach Lane Kiffin could reportedly see action from the SEC over his recent smear campaign in Vanity Fair against the Ole Miss Rebels and the University of Mississippi. Kiffin very bluntly accused Oxford, Mississippi, of harboring a hostile and racist environment on campus.
Per USA Today’s Matt Hayes, “Officials at Ole Miss and the SEC have spoken about a potential reprimand for new LSU coach Lane Kiffin over comments he made in a recent Vanity Fair magazine interview, two people close to the situation tell USA TODAY Sports … Kiffin, however, is standing firm he didn’t make racially insensitive comments about the differences in recruiting at Ole Miss — where he coached from 2020-2025 — and LSU.”
Per Kiffin in response to USA Today on the Vanity Fair profile, “People don’t read the actual words I used in the article. I said, ‘A parent said.’ That’s not me saying it as my opinion.”
Kiffin was never asked by Vanity Fair editor Chris Smith about the topic. The new LSU head coach offered it unsolicited, while his new assistant and fellow former Ole Miss head coach, Ed Orgeron, corroborated the sentiment right before he was hired in Baton Rouge.
Tracey Ivey-Muhammad, the mother of former Ole Miss defensive lineman Jared Ivey, a transfer from the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets who played on the Rebs from 2022 to 2024, and a Suwanee, Georgia, native, went on the record and publicly denounced Kiffin’s claims. Kiffin reportedly didn’t speak to her more than once in her son’s three years with the team. No one has supported Kiffin’s claims thus far.
Lane Kiffin is already causing needless distractions at LSU
Kiffin is causing needless distractions already in his first offseason with the Tigers. It’s probably not a smart play, though, considering the need for success in Louisiana for a program that just got badly burned by Brian Kelly’s contract buyout.
Since he made those comments, the NAACP has called for a boycott of schools in nearly every state in the SEC. That is a likely impetus for Kiffin being in a position to be punished.
LSU doesn’t have time or money to waste, and Kiffin’s antics are already potentially costly to the conference, his employer, and himself. If the wins don’t come on the football field, Kiffin will have wasted an enormous NIL/rev-share spend on his first-year roster. Who knows how long it’ll take before he’s on the hot seat? His leash would’ve been longer at Ole Miss, ironically.
Kiffin has to sleep in the bed he’s making in the Bayou. He could’ve gotten off to a better start in the controversy department, mainly by not seeking it.
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