Wilson Alexander
By Wilson Alexander
Advocate/Times Picayune
(First in a series)
Early last week, LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry sent Lane Kiffin
a message. Ole Miss had been jumped by Oregon in the College Football
Playoff rankings even though it had not played a game the weekend
before, and Ausberry wanted to tease him a little bit. What he said
encapsulated the way LSU tried to sell Kiffin on the job.
“Teams don’t jump LSU,” Ausberry said.
LSU finalized the hire a few days later, and Kiffin was introduced as
the new head coach Monday afternoon inside a club level overlooking
Tiger Stadium. When Kiffin walked into the room, school officials,
donors and other prominent figures gave him a standing ovation. A
photoshopped picture of Kiffin wearing an LSU visor filled screens
throughout the stadium.
The news conference took place the day after Kiffin left an Ole Miss
team on the cusp of hosting a first-round playoff game. He is the
first head coach to leave a playoff-bound power conference team, and
Kiffin mentioned a few times that he felt torn. At one point, he said
the only way to describe the process over the final days was that “it
sucked.”
But Kiffin did leave, taking over an LSU team that went 7-5 this year
while he led No. 7 Ole Miss to its first 11-win regular season in
school history. Why? Kiffin said he saw LSU as one of the premier jobs
in college football, a place where he could finally win his first
national championship. Now 50 years old and in his sixth stop as a
head coach, he made a move that he hopes will define his career.
“Somebody very close to me reminded me this week that LSU is the best
job in football,” Kiffin said.
That person may have been Pete Carroll or Nick Saban. Kiffin talked to
both of them, looking for advice from former bosses that he considers
his mentors. He suggested Saban told him to take the LSU job like he
once did himself, saying, “I respect him, so there's a reason I'm
here.” Carroll told him that Kiffin's late father, Monte, would have
advised him to go.
“I felt like everybody that I talked to outside of the state that I
was in all basically said the same thing,” Kiffin said. “They all
said, ‘Man, you are going to regret it if you don't take the shot and
you don't go to LSU. It's the best job in America with the best
resources and to win it.’”
There was mutual interest from the beginning. LSU put together a list
of names after the Oct. 26 firing of Brian Kelly, and Ausberry said
the search committee “performed due diligence on several other
candidates.” Sources said Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz was high on the
list as a backup option. But the primary target was always Kiffin.
“Lane’s name kept popping up,” Ausberry said. “You know what? Let’s
take a shot at him.”
Lane said he appreciated Verge telling him he would "leave him alone
and let him coach the team"
A longtime LSU athletic official, Ausberry led the search himself for
the first time after LSU parted with athletic director Scott Woodward
within a week of firing Kelly. Ausberry had been involved in hiring
LSU’s previous four football coaches in some capacity. When LSU
promoted him to the full-time role, his connections with agents and
coaches were viewed as an advantage.
Ausberry talked to former LSU players Booger McFarland, Ryan Clark and
Marcus Spears, as well as former coaches. He mentioned one “who worked
here,” hinting again at Saban. Ausberry wanted to ask people in the
industry about Kiffin to make sure he would be a good fit. He also
watched Ole Miss games, seeing how the team played and the way the
offense functioned.
“He has a talent that not many people have,” Ausberry said. “Steve
Spurrier had this talent. Nick Saban has this talent. Skip Bertman has
this talent where they can look at a game and say, ‘Do this right now.
Run this play right now.’ Not many guys can do that.”
At some point in the process, Ausberry flew to meet with Kiffin. He
did not specify the location or date of the meeting when asked.
Ausberry said it lasted about an hour and 20 minutes, which can be
short for these things. He asked what Kiffin needed around him to be
successful and what the coach expected from LSU’s administration, not
his ideas about offensive game plans or potential staff.
“‘I'm going to leave you alone and let you coach the team,’” Kiffin
said of Ausberry’s pitch. “I like when I hear that we're going to give
you everything to win, and I'm going to leave you alone and go coach
the team and bring us championships.”
LSU’s pursuit intensified Nov. 17, when school officials sent a
private plane to bring several of Kiffin’s family members, including
his ex-wife, Layla Kiffin, to Baton Rouge. They spent the day looking
at neighborhoods and learning about high schools. Kiffin understood
his decision affected his children and the family of his brother, Ole
Miss defensive analyst Chris Kiffin, who followed him to LSU.
Kiffin’s family took a similar trip the day before to Gainesville,
Florida, as he considered the Florida job. Layla Kiffin’s late father,
John Reaves, played quarterback for the Gators and returned to coach
at the school in the early 1990s.
“Those are the things that we were a little afraid of,” Ausberry said.
“That’s that pull to Gainesville. When she came to Baton Rouge, she
was like, ‘Wow, I really like this place.’”
Over the rest of the week, LSU officials assembled their seven-year,
$91-million contract offer. It came with a $13 million annual salary
that made Kiffin the second-highest paid coach in college football
behind Georgia’s Kirby Smart, a buyout guaranteeing 80% of his salary
and even the postseason bonuses he would have earned if Ole Miss let
him coach in the CFP. Though Gov. Jeff Landry criticized similar deals
last month, Kiffin said he “had a unique, great call” with Landry
during the process.
Kiffin joked Monday that he did not know the numbers inside his deal.
He asked his agent, Jimmy Sexton, to tell him instead how much the
teams — LSU, Florida, Ole Miss and a fourth unknown suitor — were
willing to spend on the roster. LSU has prepared to commit $25-30
million annually, sources said. Ausberry claimed donors who have
already given NIL money want to spend more and that some who haven’t
contributed before are now willing to do so. Kiffin spoke to some
boosters in recent weeks.
“This was the best setup,” Kiffin said. “That definitely played a
factor into it. Because I don't care what your systems are, without
good players, they don't work.”
Other factors included being at the only power conference school in a
talent-rich state and a stadium known as one of the most hostile
environments in college football. A few weeks ago, Kiffin took a shot
at Ole Miss’ home crowd sizes when asked about a record-setting night
against Florida, saying, “Were you here last week?” He mentioned two
of the most intense feelings of his career were overtime games as an
opponent in Tiger Stadium.
“I always thought to myself, man, what if we had that advantage on our
side?” Kiffin said.
Still, Kiffin called the past six years at Ole Miss “the best six
years of my life.” He had a team heading toward the CFP for the first
time, which LSU was willing to let him coach in as long as it had a
guarantee that he was coming afterward. He turned Ole Miss into a
contender, but he came to believe he could accomplish more at LSU.
“You did as good as you could at Ole Miss,” Ausberry told him. “You
want to get to the championship game and compete and win that national
championship, this is what you have to do.”
LSU officials felt confident they would land Kiffin for more than a
week, but with the timing complicated by his desire to coach in the
CFP, there were some nerves until he signed the deal. After LSU lost
to Oklahoma in the regular season finale, administrators took a
private plane back to Baton Rouge. Ausberry and other officials
gathered in a conference room at a private hangar owned by a prominent
booster to close the hire, and Kiffin signed a term sheet late
Saturday night.
Kiffin said he presented Ole Miss brass with a plan for how he could
still coach the team in the playoffs during conversations that took
place Saturday night and into Sunday morning. Kiffin claimed he did
not know until 30 minutes before a team meeting scheduled for 9 a.m.
Sunday that Ole Miss administrators were not going to allow him to
coach in the playoffs, which Kiffin said delayed the meeting into the
afternoon. His clothes were put on the street, and he was gone.
As he drove to the Oxford airport with his teenage son, Kiffin claimed
Ole Miss fans tried to “run” him off the road. He understood their
reactions to his departure, saying “it's the passion of the SEC.” That
did not make the messy split any easier. He said he questioned the
decision on the flight to Baton Rouge. But once he stepped off the
plane, he was reminded why he took the job.
In the same private hangar where LSU officials closed the deal the
night before, Kiffin was greeted by a group of administrators,
high-level donors and other LSU supporters. He said he “felt the power
of this place” at that moment, a feeling that grew as he saw the fans
who came to celebrate his arrival and the trophies in LSU’s facility.
“This place is built for championships with championship
expectations,” Kiffin said. “We understand that, but as an elite
competitor, that's exactly what you want, and that's why we're here.”
As he rode with his family past Tiger Stadium toward his new office,
the lights glowed through a cold and dreary Sunday night. Kiffin
called Ed Orgeron, a longtime friend and one of three LSU coaches to
win a national title this century. Kiffin joked that being there
himself now made him want to talk like his gravel-voiced Cajun friend.
“I don't know, man,” Kiffin said, “I'm feeling you right now.”
“Coach,” Kiffin recalled Orgeron saying, “you're at the best place in America.”
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