Forde-yard Dash: Assessing The Wreckage Of Lane Kiffin’s Latest Coaching Controversy

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news successful assemblage shot (Marty Smith hostage videos from Mississippi sold separately): 

The predictable, “not my fault” choruses are being sung amid nan latest travesty successful nan sport. It’s 1 of nan things nan alleged leaders are champion at—skirting accountability, pointing fingers, everlastingly failing to attraction astir nan merchandise arsenic a whole.

Rest assured, successful nan College Football Playoff-sabotaging saga of Lane Kiffin (1) jilting Mississippi (2) for LSU (3), there is infinite blasted to spell around. So overmuch self-interest, truthful overmuch ego, truthful small regard—as usual—for nan existent players involved. The entire, unprecedented section is simply a disgraceful, yet inevitable, byproduct of a surgery strategy and nan con men who get rich | from it.

Start pinch nan Ole Miss administration, which is intelligibly placing blasted for this connected Kiffin. Not wholly without merit, which we’ll get to momentarily. But if what Kiffin said is true—that he asked to coach nan squad done nan playoffs, pinch support from nan players, and was told to deed nan road—then nan leaders of nan schoolhouse put their ain pridefulness earlier nan champion changeable astatine a nationalist championship. And astatine Mississippi, nan past 1 of those it could declare came earlier nan shot programme recruited Black players.

Clearly, keeping Kiffin done nan playoff would person been a difficult inquire of diversion head Keith Carter (4). LSU is an ancient rival wrong nan aforesaid conference, and Ole Miss boosters stepped up big-time successful caller years to springiness Kiffin nan NIL backing he wanted. To beryllium shunned hurts. But if Kiffin was all-in connected a title pursuit and consenting to accept, arsenic he put it, “guardrails … to protect nan program”—presumably successful position of taking players pinch him to LSU—why not do it? Why not springiness your 11–1 team, which is apt to big a location playoff game, nan champion imaginable chance astatine thing that would beryllium cherished by nan fans forever?

Part of assemblage football’s problem is nan hysteria astir preparing for adjacent season, moreover erstwhile it undercuts nan existent season. If keeping Kiffin would person wounded nan Rebels successful nan transportation marketplace aliases successful high-school recruiting for a maximum of 8 weeks, O.K. How galore instrumentality bases would return a down twelvemonth aliases 2 successful speech for winning a nationalist title, aliases moreover making nan CFP quarterfinals aliases semifinals?

Kiffin is nan team’s maestro violative strategist. He’s not a CEO type who delegates during nan week and only wears nan headset connected Saturday for ornamental purposes. It’s difficult to judge nan Rebels are going to beryllium arsenic bully without him arsenic they’ve been each play pinch him. In choosing to region Kiffin from nan playoff operation astatine this precocious juncture, this mightiness moreover change really nan action committee views Ole Miss. Could it wounded its seeding and nan imaginable for a location game?

A akin business is playing retired overmuch otherwise betwixt Florida (5), Tulane (6) and Jon Sumrall (7). He’s leaving nan Green Wave to coach nan Gators, but not earlier finishing nan occupation astatine Tulane. With a location triumph successful nan American Conference title crippled this week, that will see a playoff berth. Both schools and nan coach are prioritizing Tulane’s typical season.

Is that easier to do erstwhile location is nary rivalry involved? Sure. But it’s still an acknowledgement that a shared extremity should beryllium chased to its fullest grade without bailing retired for nan adjacent thing.

(Also, nan insta-promotion of protect coordinator Pete Golding to nan full-time caput coach smacks of trying to triumph nan breakup arsenic accelerated arsenic humanly possible. Maybe it useful retired well, but Golding wasn’t connected immoderate 2025 basking lists to beryllium an SEC caput coach anterior to this weekend.)

Ole Miss tabbed protect coordinator Pete Golding arsenic caput coach connected Sunday aft Lane Kiffin’s departure. / Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

All that said, Kiffin’s ain “Not My Fault” stance is insulting. He intelligibly shares successful nan blasted and further distinguishes himself among nan oiliest characters successful assemblage shot history.

He’s been a sower of discord everywhere, a talented coach whose tenures ever extremity badly, acrimoniously and awkwardly. The characteristic stories that populated nan net this autumn astir really Kiffin has changed because he does yoga and stopped drinking were nan benignant of puff pieces that entree publicity tends to produce, allowing nan coach to reinvent himself.

As it turns out, nan spots are still connected nan leopard. Kiffin’s estimation is earned, not invented.

Everyone who has hired Kiffin arsenic a caput coach ends up disliking him, pinch nan imaginable objection of Florida Atlantic. Al Davis and nan Raiders hated him, Tennessee fans hated him, USC fans hated him—now it’s Ole Miss’s turn.

Nobody made Kiffin flirt agelong and difficult during nan play pinch Florida and LSU. Nobody forced him to put his family connected backstage jets to circuit Gainesville and Baton Rouge, actions that escalated this into a hysteria. Nobody told him he had to return nan LSU occupation astatine a clip erstwhile nan Ole Miss occupation mightiness beryllium conscionable arsenic good.

The astir confounding point present is that Kiffin worked difficult capable to put nan Rebels connected nan aforesaid level arsenic nan Tigers. Then he decided to time off to pursuit a title elsewhere erstwhile he already had a chance to pursuit it astatine Ole Miss. Over clip it will astir apt beryllium easier to do astatine LSU, but present successful nan precious present, he’s giving distant an opportunity.

Let’s not excuse LSU for its all-world hypocrisy of caller weeks. Gov. Jeff Landry (8) put connected a bravura capacity arsenic an outraged champion of fiscal sanity successful decrying nan monolithic buyout for fired coach Brian Kelly, pinning nan blasted connected diversion head Scott Woodward and helping push him out. Now LSU is throwing an astronomical statement astatine Kiffin, because nan Tigers request to get backmost to winning.

Further down nan “Not My Fault” list: mega-agent Jimmy Sexton (9). He’s a bull successful a china shop, routinely strong-arming schools and helping create nan Cult of nan Coach that plagues assemblage sports. If you’re appalled by nan buyouts that lead to tens of millions successful wasted money? Sexton negotiated plentifulness of them. If you’re ticked disconnected astatine coaches talking to schools during nan play and leaving erstwhile location are games still to play? He’s nan intermediary facilitating many.

Is Sexton conscionable doing his job? Sure. But it’s a hellhole of a statement to locomotion to routinely disrupt nan athletics without ever base immoderate work for nan tumult.

Next connected nan “Not My Fault” list: nan SEC, commissioner Greg Sankey (10) and nan full activity of assemblage football. The damaging, nonsensical recruiting almanac drives these problems, and everyone successful complaint continues to motion astatine it. Spasms of outrage rustle up, past are allowed to dice down because cipher really seems to attraction astir shot cheapening its postseason.

Nowhere is nan eat-or-be-eaten justification for each trespass of ethics, master courtesy and decorum much salient than successful Sankey’s league. The deficiency of an NFL-style protocol for erstwhile coaches tin beryllium interviewed and hired is 1 thing; nan complete Wild West attack successful nan SEC is another. I asked nan commissioner a mates of weeks agone whether he had immoderate misgivings astir Ole Miss opinionated to person its typical play undercut by convention rivals, and he fundamentally washed his hands of it.

“I deliberation we person arsenic galore statesmanlike openings,” Sankey said. “Nobody reports astir those and cipher really talks astir nan timing of those being filled. I tin power what I tin control. I don't interest astir things for illustration that. That's not thing that I control. I would expect nan coaches that person dedicated nan full play to a team, recruited young group onto their team, would fulfill that responsibility to their team. But we're going to person to spot what happens.”

So it goes. For 10 months a year, everyone successful nan athletics preaches teamwork and togetherness, and for nan past 2 months of nan twelvemonth it’s each coach for himself. Games are reduced to sideshow status. And pinch nan expanded playoff, nan carousel has go an existential threat to really assemblage shot crowns a champion.

Lane Kiffin is nan first to transverse nan Rubicon by lighting a play and his estimation connected fire. But he had co-conspirators successful nan act. Is this going to go nan corrosive norm?

Dash Playoff Bracket

If coming were Selection Sunday—and it astir is—here is really The Dash would put nan College Football Playoff field.

Seeding: 

1. Ohio State
2. Indiana
3. Georgia
4. Texas Tech
5. Oregon
6. Mississippi
7. Texas A&M
8. Oklahoma
9. Notre Dame
10. Alabama
11. Virginia
12. Tulane 

On nan bubble: Miami, Vanderbilt, BYU, Texas.

First round: 

No. 12 Tulane astatine No. 5 Oregon
No. 11 Virginia astatine No. 6 Mississippi
No. 10 Alabama astatine No. 7 Texas A&M
No. 9 Notre Dame astatine No. 8 Oklahoma

Quarterfinals:

Cotton Bowl: Tulane-Oregon victor vs. Texas Tech
Sugar Bowl: Virginia-Mississippi victor vs. Georgia
Orange Bowl: Alabama-Texas A&M victor vs. Indiana
Rose Bowl: Notre Dame-Oklahoma victor vs. Ohio State 

More College Football from Sports Illustrated

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