Longtime college football head coach Lane Kiffin is being criticized for recent comments he made to Vanity Fair about his time at the University of Mississippi, suggesting the school’s “Rebels” mascot and racial history were to blame for poor recruitment classes.
He mentioned the university trying for years to distance itself from imagery like the Confederate flag, the “Ole Miss” nickname, its “Colonel Reb” mascot, and other traditions associated with the Confederacy.
The coach also told the outlet that some recruits would tell him, “‘Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi.’”
Kiffin left Ole Miss to begin coaching at Louisiana State University (LSU) in November of last year.
Contrasting his alleged recruiting struggles at Ole Miss with what he anticipates for LSU, Kiffin said, “That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’ diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.’”
Former ESPN analyst Sage Steele, now hosting “The Sage Steele Show” podcast, told Fox News’ Will Cain this week that her daughter attends Ole Miss and she has never seen Confederate flags on campus.
“I just think it’s really fascinating that now he says that,” she added. “But, you were fine in Oxford all those years. You were fine in Oxford leading into last football season, saying ‘It is just so much more than football.’ …. it’s how the community has embraced him and his family. And he’s come such a long way personally. …And then all of a sudden, they hold your feet to the fire, and no, you can’t coach the college football playoff after deciding to leave.”
Cain then pointed out Kiffin can claim the alleged racial issues at Ole Miss were reasons he left the university, but the $91 million contract he received to coach at LSU probably had more influence on his departure than anything.
Social media users roasted Kiffin for insinuating Oxford, Mississippi, or the Ole Miss campus are racist communities.
One 𝕏 account addressed the irony behind Kiffin’s complaints, highlighting the fact that LSU itself has direct ties to the Confederacy.
In fact, the LSU Tiger mascot is a nod to the Civil War regiment that served under General Robert E. Lee!
“The Louisiana Tigers were known not only for their bravery on the battlefield but also for their unruliness, drunkenness, rioting, and discipline issues- all of which seem to have manifested in LSU fans today and can be observed on any given fall Saturday in Baton Rouge,” wrote The American Culturist.
After receiving backlash for dissing the school where he previously coached, Coach Kiffin said, “I really apologize if anybody at Ole Miss or in Mississippi was offended by that. In a four-hour interview, I was asked a lot of questions on a lot of things, and Ole Miss has been wonderful to me and to my family. I was asked questions about the differences in recruiting, and I said a narrative that we battled there from some out-of-state black parents and grandparents was not wanting their kid to move to Mississippi. That’s a narrative that coaches have been fighting forever. It wasn’t calculated by bringing it up.”
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5 Responses
To defend ol Laney, He wanted to Coach for the playoffs with Ol Miss, then LSU messed him up with some kinda deal.
I dont care, Im a Pro fan
Im from UGA Land, we are the most rascist in USA, and the brothers love playing here.
We’re so rascist, even Hitler was afraid of us
Total hyperbole! You leave one similar school for another. Just admit it was for the money 💰 idiot
The “ole miss” was a reference used by the enslaved of the day to describe the head mistress or the wife of the owner of the plantation. The university adopted the name, or so the story goes, for its yearbook back in the late 1800s and it stuck as an endearing reference to the university from then to mow.
…traditions associated with the Confederacy.
Must be one of those liberal yankee type of fellas.