I left the U.S. military on a Friday morning in 1971, departing Naval Air Station-Albany, Georgia, and going to work three days later as a sportswriter for the Jackson Daily News.
Some 50-plus years later, I still perform that type of work on manifold forums, watching and occasionally writing about Mississippi sports figures from Johnny Vaught to Walter Payton.
I’ve also written about some infamous coaches and athletes, or, shall we say, some notorious coaches and athletes, none more so than Lane Monte Kiffin, who has left a successful six-year run as Ole Miss’ head football coach for supposed greener pastures at LSU.
Certainly because there are so many more breeds of media outlets and platforms than ever before, Kiffin has become this state’s most noted sports figure ever in terms of state and national media attention and fan enthrallment, and not always in a good way.
He coached the Rebel football program to 11 wins this season, their most ever, and the team could smell victory over mighty Georgia, leading the Bulldogs by nine points early in the final quarter, only to lose the handle and the game.
For their breakthrough efforts, the Rebels are surely among the 12 teams selected for the college playoffs. Yet Kiffin abandoned the team to accept the job at LSU. Both parties could have waited until the Ole Miss season was completed before finishing their deal. They desperately wanted and, apparently, needed each other.
Thankfully, Ole Miss had a seasoned assistant coach in Pete Golding to take the coaching reins — good for him and the Rebels. This was the right thing to do in the case of Ole Miss. This way, the university’s administrators know that Kiffin won’t be recruiting for LSU while simultaneously attempting to coach the playoff-bound Rebels.
For his part, Kiffin, 50, has been called everything from a drama queen to a villain to even worse. And it’s all been said and done in the great wide-open spaces of the sports universe.
Through these last six years while Kiffin was coaching in Oxford, I’ve often been asked my opinion of his coaching prowess.
I’ve admired his bringing in talented players through the transfer portal and his knowledge of the intricacies of the passing game, but I didn’t trust his hard-and-fast rule to almost always seek a first down while facing a fourth-down situation from almost anywhere on the field. His team had an annoying habit of running the ball three straight times into the middle on first down to no avail when passing the ball made more sense, considering an artful quarterback and splendid receivers. And he eschewed field goals when needing points.
I and legions of Rebel fans will never get over his team’s total lack of defensive effort in allowing Kentucky to complete a long pass on fourth down late in the 2024 game that led to an Ole Miss defeat — one that cost the Rebels a berth in the first 12-team playoffs.
Lane Kiffin was good for Ole Miss during his tenure. He put the Rebel football program back on the national map. Expect the same out of him in Baton Rouge in dramatic fashion.