Jack BaerStaff writerSun, November 30, 2025 at 8:13 PM UTC·7 min readHead coaches have left schools for bigger jobs before, but none have made it an art form quite like Lane Kiffin. The Ole Miss coach completed a move weeks in the making Sunday when he announced he will be taking his talents to Baton Rouge after an 11-1 regular season at Ole Miss.
Kiffin made the announcement on social media, sharing the following statement:
"After a lot of prayer and time spent with family, I made the difficult decision to accept the head coaching position at LSU.
"I was hoping to complete a historic six season run with this year's team by leading Ole Miss through the playoffs, capitalizing on the team's incredible success and their commitment to finishing strong, and investing everything into a playoff run with guardrails in place to protect the program in any areas of concern. My request to do so was denied by Keith Carter despite the team also asking him to allow me to keep coaching them so they could better maintain their high level of performance. Unfortunately, that means Friday's Egg Bowl was my last game coaching the Rebels.
"While I am looking forward to a new start with a unique opportunity at LSU, I will forever cherish the incredible six years I spent at Ole Miss and will be rooting hard for the team to complete their mission and bring a championship to Oxford."
The move is hardly a surprise. LSU offered Kiffin a massive amount of money and that has rarely stopped a head coach, even if he was already at program in the same conference.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt's even less of a surprise when you look at Kiffin's career. The man has been a name to know in the coaching carousel for two decades now and has become one of the easiest-to-hate figures in college football.
Here's how that happened.
2001: Kiffin joins USC
The son of legendary defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, father of the Tampa 2 defense and a coordinator for five different NFL teams, Kiffin is a football lifer and spends his college playing career as a quarterback at Fresno State. He makes the change to coach while still in college, working as a student assistant under Jeff Tedford, then gets his graduate assistant job at Colorado State.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHis next job was defensive quality control for the Jacksonville Jaguars, his first taste of the NFL (and not his last). After a 7-9 Jaguars season, Kiffin gets the job that will change his career from his father's mentee, Pete Carroll. He starts at USC as the Trojan's tight ends coach.
2007: A 31-year-old NFL head coach
Over the course of six years, Kiffin rises in rank on a coaching staff that also included future head coaches Steve Sarkisian and Ed Orgeron, while USC goes through a golden era it's still chasing. He goes from tight ends coach to wide receivers coach to passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator, getting a promotion at least every two seasons.
His biggest promotion comes after the 2006 season. Instead of a college job, his first head coaching position is the Oakland Raiders after Al Davis takes a chance on him. It's a nearly unprecedented jump, going from college coordinator to NFL head coach, and it makes Kiffin the youngest head coach in modern NFL history.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement2008: A 33-year-old ex-NFL head coach
We don't need to dwell on what went wrong in Oakland, but let's just say JaMarcus Russell, whom Kiffin opposed drafting, did not work after being selected first overall the year Kiffin was hired.
There is a report Davis tried to convince Kiffin to resign after a 4-12 season in 2007, which the coach refuses. The Raiders deny the report, but it's very clear Davis isn't happy with Kiffin. It becomes even more clear when Davis fires Kiffin for cause on Sept. 30, 2008 and publicly calls him a "professional liar" and says he "disgraced the organization."
2009: Kiffin's first SEC job
With the NFL not working out, Kiffin goes back to college and finds a landing spot at Tennessee after the firing of longtime head coach Phillip Fulmer. Kiffin becomes the youngest head coach in FBS and gets a deal that pays him $2 million his first season, plus bonuses.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe first year goes OK. Tennessee goes from 5-7 in Fulmer's final season to 7-6 under Kiffin, but Kiffin also makes very few friends along the way. An attempted feud with Florida's Urban Meyer ends with Kiffin apologizing for accidentally committing a recruiting violation, and there was also the Alshon Jeffery pumping gas affair, which Kiffin denies.
Still, there's plenty to build on after a winning season, all Kiffin needs to do is buckle down and ... well, you know where this is going.
2010: Kiffin returns to USC
Kiffin makes the move that cements him as a college football villain. After just one year in Knoxville, Kiffin leaves for his old stomping grounds of USC after Carroll takes the Seattle Seahawks gig.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe move does not go down well. Tennessee students riot. Mattresses are burned. Many of Kiffin's players get the news from the media. As we said earlier, coaches have left programs before, but rarely do they leave this kind of mark on their launching pad.
2013: Kiffin gets left at LAX
Kiffin's arrival at USC was colorful. So was his exit.
He had his moments in Los Angeles, going 10-2 in 2011 despite dealing with significant NCAA sanctions from the Reggie Bush scandal. They began 2012 ranked first in the preseason AP Poll, the become the first such team of the BCS era to finish the season unranked after a 7-6 season.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe 2013 season was shaping up no better when USC made the call to dismiss him in a manner that would become endlessly mocked. After a 62-41 loss to Arizona State, Kiffin is called off the team bus at Los Angeles International Airport and is informed he has been fired. Then the Trojans drive back to campus while leaving him at LAX.
No one is happier than Tennessee fans.
2014: Nick Saban offers a lifeline
Say what you will about Kiffin, he has shown himself to be an impressive offensive mind throughout his career. Now a coaching free agent, Kiffin gets brought in as an offensive consultant for Alabama and ends up taking the offensive coordinator job under Nick Saban, who wants to modernize his offense mind amid a dynasty.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe partnership is fruitful and colorful.
2016: Kiffin becomes a head coach again
Alabama becomes further terrifying via Kiffin's passing attack and wins a national championship in the 2015 season. Kiffin and Saban are a personality clash to put it lightly, and another Kiffin tenure ends under messy terms after he takes the head coaching job at Florida Atlantic during the 2016 season.
Saban keeps Kiffin around for the first College Football Playoff game, but dumps him before the second and replaces him with Steve Sarkisian.
2019: Kiffin becomes an SEC coach again
Two 10-win seasons at FAU and his experience under Saban make Kiffin once again an attractive coaching candidate, and it's Ole Miss that lands him. FAU wanted to keep him, but well, if he's willing to leave an SEC team after one year it's not a surprise when he leaves a Conference USA team after three years.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt has been a successful tenure at Ole Miss since then, with four 10-win seasons and two (soon to be three) New Years' Six bowls in six years. But Kiffin has made it very clear he wants more.
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