Adapted from Lane Being Lane: The Story of Lane Kiffin, College Football's Agent of Chaos by John Talty published by Harper on Sept. 15, 2026. The first book on the most polarizing coach in college sports, Louisiana State University football coach Lane Kiffin, charts his inexorable rise and his impact on the game, as he left a trail of winning teams, bad feelings, and controversy in his wake. You can order a copy of Lane Being Lane here.
Signed copies of the book are also available for order here. Lane believed more and more that he may have done all he could do at Ole Miss. He was expecting Ole Miss to fall in maybe the upper third of the SEC when it came to NIL and revenue sharing, and thought that the school didn't have the booster base to keep up with the most monied SEC schools.
Knowing there was already an attractive option out there that wanted him, Lane began fixating on everything Ole Miss didn't have. It didn't have the prestige or tradition of schools like Alabama and Georgia. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium only sat 64,038, the fifth smallest in the SEC.
As he thought about possibly leaving for Florida, he told friends the Ole Miss crowd could never compare to what he had experienced inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. It wasn't all too dissimilar to how he evaluated recruits or even people in his life: Once Lane had a negative opinion, it was awfully hard to shake him from it. A week later, a thrilling 34–26 win at number thirteen Oklahoma paved the path to the College Football Playoff.
At 7–1, Ole Miss's remaining schedule was more than manageable: South Carolina, Citadel, Florida, and Mississippi State. The Rebels would be favored in all those games, and if they took care of business as expected, the program would make its first playoff. The conventional wisdom at the time was a playoff trip would eliminate the already growing threat of another school stealing Kiffin away.
With the critical early-signing period and transfer portal periods hitting in early December and January, respectively, rival programs couldn't afford to wait on a coach who could go on an extended playoff run. Similarly, no coach would willingly walk away from coaching a playoff team to go elsewhere. Ole Miss making the playoffs would seem to keep Lane Kiffin in Oxford for another season.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
