Beating LSU Elation, and some thoughts about Lane Kiffin

Oct 01, 25

Kiffin As I wrote in the last post, this past weekend was about as close to a perfect weekend of college football as I can remember. The Rebel-verse has been breathing rarified air. Something about beating LSU causes this, moreso than defeating any other team. It’s tangible. At work, my fellow Rebels fans are walking a little bit taller, a bit more upright, with these subtle smiles and nods emmanating from somewhere deep inside.

This is the first time I have ever seen that feeling reflected back to us by the culture at large, and it’s remarkable. All the football commentators on their shows, on their podcasts and YouTube channels, are giving the Rebels love. People are celebrating the Rebels and their superstar coach, Lane Kiffin, aka. Coach Kiff. As a lifelong Rebels fan, I have never seen anything like it.

A few thoughts:

  1. I WANT GEORGIA. I want to go to Athens, which I assume will be a night game because Georgia always seems to get night games, but I want it to be a night game. The last time Ole Miss played at Athens was in 2023, and they beat us, brutally. I wrote about it at the time. It was one of the worst beatdowns I’d ever seen my Rebels endure. I want to pay them back at their place, at night. Realistically, it’s a loss for us. It just is. This Georgia team is no joke. They can run the ball and they play hard. If Ole Miss can find a way to defeat them at their place at night, I will know this team is bound for the playoffs, that it is indeed a very special team. I don’t know what Kiffin will do to prepare, but I hope he makes them all watch that 2023 beatdown. I hope Kiffin remembers.

  2. I speculated a lot that NIL would make me dislike the game, but the opposite has happened. Now that players are paid above-board, the game feels more honest. Under the new paradigm, players aren’t going to go to Georgia or Alabama or Notre Dame out of sheer program reputation. They are going to go for money, and for the head coach. They are going to go to the place where the head coach is a superstar, and where he is firmly ensonced and safe in the position, because that means program stability. That place is Ole Miss. No coach in college football, and I mean bar-none, was better at riding the NIL wave than Lane Kiffin. He was on the bleeding edge of that transition from day one. Ole Miss is the place to be.

  3. I didn’t like Lane Kiffin at first, when he first took the Ole Miss job. I saw him as a “hollywood coach”, all image. And honestly, you can see how I could see him that way under the old paradigm, but in the new paradigm, he looks like a genius. I have completely changed my tune. Kiffin is a superstar football coach. I’m glad he’s a Rebel.

  4. That said, Kiffin has to clean up the mistakes. In all three of the SEC games we’ve played this season, against Kentucky, Arkansas, and LSU, the Rebels were clearly the better team on the field, yet all of those games were close, mostly due to mistakes. Penalties. Mental errors. Kiffin’s teams play that way, and I wish they would get a good bit more disciplined. I mean, look at the end of the LSU game. Chambliss, the touted quarterback, made a huge mistake that could have cost Ole Miss the victory when he ran out of bounds when he should have taken a knee in bounds. People have glossed over it, but it was a big-time blunder. That’s the kind of thing that has to stop. Ole Miss should have won all of those games handily, but all of them were close. I want some disciplined play and some 45-14 scores, starting with the next opponent, Washington State.

  5. While us fans are going to enjoy the bye week and continue to enjoy the LSU victory, I hope Kiffin can bring the players back down to Earth much more quickly. Seven more games on the schedule, and I truly believe this Ole Miss team can win all of them, but this team still has a lot of work to do to reach its fullest potential.