LSU's Lane Kiffin claims lack of diversity made recruiting to Ole Miss more difficult

Despite earning the "Portal King" moniker at Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin says it was harder to recruit players to Oxford than some other places around the SEC. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Kiffin claimed that Black families were hesitant to send their children to Ole Miss, a school that has frequently wrestled with its ties to the Confederacy while existing in a homogenous environment.

Now the coach at LSU, Kiffin, told VF that it's easier to recruit Black players to Baton Rouge because of the city's diversity. According to Kiffin, the conversations are very different from the ones he had with some high-profile recruits at Ole Miss.

"'Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren't letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi.' That doesn't come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus's diversity feels so great: 'It feels like there's no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that's the real world.'"

After the interview, Kiffin followed up with Vanity Fair to state that he wasn't trying to take shots at Oxford -- he was simply relaying conversations he had while coaching there.

"I just hope [my comment] comes across respectful to Ole Miss," Kiffin said. "... There are some things that I'm saying that are factual, they're not shots."

Kiffin's revelation actually isn't exactly a new phenomenon. The Ole Miss football program has been wrestling with its Old South ties for a while now.

In 1996, Tommy Tuberville fought a similar battle regarding the use of Confederate flags in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. According to author Jay Busbee in his book "Iron in the Blood," Tuberville told university chancellor Robert Khayat in 1996, "We can't recruit against that flag." Tuberville even told notable Ole Miss alum Harold Burson that the flags were "killing" the Rebels.

"With the flags on campus, we're not getting our share of Black players that are going to other schools," Tuberville said, per Busbee.

Prior to the team's homecoming game in 1997, Tuberville issued a statement telling fans not to wave flags at home games.

In 2003, Ole removed the Colonel Reb mascot from its official on-field role at the university due to its perceived ties to the Confederacy. In 2010, that mascot was replaced by Rebel Black Bear, which was later usurped by Tony the Landshark.

It's also important to note that this problem hasn't been limited to Oxford. In 2020, the state of Mississippi changed its flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem, a change spurred by Mississippi State star running back Kylin Hill, who declared he wouldn't represent his home state again until something was done.

Even well outside the borders of Mississippi, SEC coaches have pushed to eliminate ties between their program and the Confederacy. In 2007, then South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier called for "that damn Confederate flag" to be removed from the Statehouse. The flag was eventually removed in 2015.