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.
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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.
"I think the mistake everyone makes with Lane Kiffin is applying reason and logic to the situation," says Zach Scruggs, a board member of the Grove Collective.
Instead of basking in perhaps his most important win as Ole Miss's head coach, Kiffin turned to defensive coordinator Pete Golding on the field and asked him, "Are you ready to go to Gainesville?"
As if there weren't enough drama brewing, less than twenty-four hours later LSU and bombastic Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry joined the fray.
A little-known congressman who attended the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Landry made a name for himself with seemingly outlandish demands meant to score political points.
Like wanting a live tiger back roaming the sidelines at LSU football games. Landry was infuriated that LSU still hadn't brought back Mike the Tiger to LSU football games after discontinuing the tradition in 2015. When the school pushed back on the governor's plan to bring Mike back, Landry had a separate tiger named Omar Bradley flown in and paraded around Baton Rouge. He called critics "woke people" and even jabbed the school after its loss, saying, "Our live tiger, unfortunately, was the only tiger who showed up Saturday."
Landry knew how much college football mattered to his constituents. When LSU football was good, everything and everyone seemed to benefit in Louisiana, especially in the state capital. Those fall Saturdays are the social events of the year in Baton Rouge—and throughout the South—as 102,000 people crowd into Tiger Stadium decked out in purple and gold to cheer on their "Bayou Bengals."
With LSU struggling under fourth-year coach Brian Kelly, a man who never fit in the Deep South, Landry saw his opportunity. In Louisiana, the governor who can fix LSU football does more for his popularity rating and chances at reelection than anything he can do with the economy or education.
Landry publicly pressured LSU to make a $54 million move to fire Kelly, and then, after athletic director Scott Woodward did, he publicly called for Woodward's dismissal too. Landry demolished any chance Woodward had at being the man to find the next LSU football coach when the Louisiana governor said he'd rather let Donald Trump make the pick. With Woodward out of the mix, Landry inserted himself into the power vacuum.
He handpicked a new university president, who in turn picked a new athletic director, who in theory would hire the next head coach. If all this seems unbelievable, that the Louisiana governor would be this involved in the hiring of a football coach, it should! But this is the SEC, baby, where it just means more.
Former LSU president F. King Alexander, who had to deal with the governor's and Board of Trustees' influence on his campus decisions, had the perfect anecdote to sum up the dynamic at the university.
"The most popular board member—the one who lobbied the hardest—became chair of the athletic committee of the board," Alexander told me. "The most unfortunate board member, the one who nobody liked, became chair of the academic affairs committee of the board."
Not surprisingly, in that environment, Landry and other LSU power players were all in on Lane Kiffin. Landry had initially come out against LSU giving out any more big guaranteed contracts in the aftermath of Kelly's massive buyout. Of course, all it took was one call between Landry and Kiffin during LSU's pursuit to get the governor on board with spending whatever it took to get Lane in Baton Rouge.
It set the stage for the most competitive three-team battle in recent SEC history. Florida, LSU, and the home team Ole Miss all wanted Lane Kiffin as their head coach. Jimmy Sexton couldn't have dreamed of a better scenario for his once-radioactive client.
The only problem was Lane Kiffin wanted to have his cake and eat it, too.
Excerpted from the book "Lane Being Lane: The Story of Lane Kiffin, College Football's Agent of Chaos." From Harper Books. Reprinted with permission.
