It is one of the biggest storylines surrounding college football. With fans, players, and schools all anxiously waiting for the news. Waiting for Lane Kiffin’s decision on where he will be coaching in the 2026-27 college football season. On Dec. 1 2025, Lane Kiffin announced he would be leaving his previous position as head coach of Ole Miss to be the head football coach at LSU(Louisiana State University). Was this decision the right one though? Looking back at Kiffin’s history, it may not have been the right decision.

First we need to look at the history behind Lane Kiffin. Lane Kiffin has been around the game of football for several decades now. He started his head coaching career with the Oakland Raiders in 2007 where he was fired only four games into his second season with the team. After his stint in the NFL, he would leave to become the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers football team in 2008. He would go 7-6 in his first year and gave signs that he could bring glory back to the team. However that hope of what Kiffin could bring to the Volunteers vanished quickly, as he was offered the football head coaching position at USC in 2009 which Kiffin accepted.   

This is where Kiffin’s personality began to be seen by the world. He was considered to have a big ego and full of himself. Kiffin went to USC because he considered it his “dream job”. The first two seasons at USC were very productive as the team went 8-5 in 2010 and 10-2 in 2011. The USC Trojans would be ranked first heading into the 2012 season. However that is where things began to unravel. The Trojans would go 7-6 in 2012, failing to live up to the huge expectations put on the team and Kiffin. He would then infamously be fired at the tarmac after losing to Arizona State University on Sep 29 2013 in the middle of the season. The team was 3-2 at the time of the firing.

Beginning to grow a reputation as a coach who is very hard to deal with and constantly moving teams, Kiffin knew he would not get many coaching opportunities. Then in 2014, he was hired as the offensive coordinator for Alabama under former head coach Nick Saban. Saban, who is considered the greatest college football coach of all time, was thought to be able to revitalize Kiffin’s once promising career. Saban succeeded as Alabama won the national championship game in 2016 and went back to the national championship game in 2017 with Kiffin as a huge factor. However things were not great on the sideline between the two as Kiffin and Saban would constantly get into heated arguments. The constant fighting between the two would lead to Kiffin getting suspended from coaching prior to the 2017 national championship game. However Kiffin had already landed himself a head coaching job with the Florida Atlantic Owls prior to the suspension. 

Kiffin had a very successful career at Florida Atlantic that would eventually lead him to getting a head coaching job in the S.E.C(South Eastern Conference) with the Ole Miss Rebels in 2020. The school had never been a big football program and had struggled for years to be a competent team. With Kiffin as the head coach, the school had gone 55-19 in the five years he had been there and in 2025 led Ole Miss to their best record in school history at 11-1 and a spot in the college football playoff. This is the first time ever the school has made the college football playoffs. However, Kiffin will not be able to coach the team in the playoffs because of his decision to take the head coaching vacancy at LSU. This leaves the Ole Miss Rebels without their head coach heading into the playoffs.

Now looking back at Kiffin’s extensive history, it is clear that he has never truly found a stable situation. He is consistently moving teams and hasn’t been able to maintain success. Ole Miss has been the exception though. Ole Miss has been a stable situation for him where he was consistently able to get plenty of players from the transfer portal and maintain success in arguably the best conference in all of college football. The program had never been a powerhouse football team so Kiffin did not have to worry about his job stability, and he turned Ole Miss into one of the best football teams.

Now why would Lane Kiffin want to leave Ole Miss for LSU? The report coming out is that LSU would give Kiffin more money to spend on getting players than Ole Miss. This could be a sustainable resource that would allow Kiffin to pay some of the best players in college football. However, Kiffin had proven that he could consistently bring out the best in players he got from high school and the transfer portal in his time at Ole Miss. 

Although, one of the biggest reasons why Kiffin left was for the 90 million dollar contract he agreed to. With this comes no luxury of a stable job situation as LSU is not patient with their head coaches. We saw this after the 2021 season where former LSU coach, Ed Orgeron, was fired after winning a national championship in the 2019 season. So Kiffin does not have a lot of time to prove he can win at LSU.

So despite the extensive contract Kiffin received, the decision to leave Ole Miss may be detrimental to his career. The situation between LSU and Ole Miss is very similar to the Tennessee and USC situation over a decade ago. Only time will tell, but if Lane Kiffin cannot maintain success like he did at Ole Miss he will find himself in the same situation he was at with USC.

Information according to “E60: The Many Lives of Lane Kiffin”.