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By Rowan Fisher-Shotton
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The Lane Kiffin-LSU saga was peak college football. Two days after Ole Miss beat Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl, Kiffin flew from Oxford to Baton Rouge and took over as the Tigers' head coach on a record seven-year, $91 million deal.
At the time, the Rebels were on the verge of their first-ever College Football Playoff appearance after a historic season under Kiffin, and he was reportedly just about to sign a lucrative extension at Ole Miss before switching course and committing to their SEC rival instead. He had denied all rumors that he was thinking about leaving in the lead-up to the Mississippi State game, even if nobody really took him seriously.
But it was the way he left Ole Miss that drew immediate controversy. He didn't just abandon the team right before the postseason, he also tried to take multiple Rebels coaches and players along with him. Still, Kiffin insists that the decision was "extremely difficult" and that he made the choice only after spending time in prayer and with his family.
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At the time, some had also speculated that Nick Saban played a role in advising Kiffin to leave Ole Miss for LSU. Saban addressed those rumors on College GameDay, with Kiffin set to return to Oxford on Saturday night.
"Where do you think you can win? Where do you think you fit? And I also say, 'Why can't you win at where you are now? You have a great quarterback. You have a great running back. You're in the playoffs. You have a chance to win the national championship. So why do you have to go someplace else?'" Saban said. "So, but everybody makes their own decision. I don't tell anybody where to go."
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Saban may be more remembered for what he did at Alabama, coaching the Tide for 17 years and leading them to six national championships, one of which, in 2015, he won with Kiffin on his staff as offensive coordinator. But before that, he also coached at LSU for five years, going 48-16 over that span and winning a national championship in 2003.
Saban and Kiffin respect each other and still maintain a strong relationship to this day. But there's also been tension over the years. In 2016, while Kiffin was still the offensive coordinator at Alabama, he accepted the head coaching job at Florida Atlantic while the Tide were in the middle of their playoff run. Due to the distraction of managing a new team while his own was chasing a championship, Saban removed Kiffin from his staff before the championship game, which Alabama lost 35-31 to Clemson.
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