BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — When Lane Kiffin glances up from his desk inside LSU’s training center, his eyes are drawn to a large, framed photo of him and his brother, Chris, celebrating on a sideline.The image was captured at Mississippi’s Vaught Hemingway Stadium less than one year ago, moments after tight end Dae’Quan Wright’s first-down catch sealed a 24-19 victory over LSU.Those who saw the game might recall Kiffin, moments after the catch, emphatically driving his clenched fist downward, as if pounding a final nail in the Tigers’ coffin.LSU fans can’t wait to see Kiffin celebrate like that again.Now that the fiery, outspoken, headline-grabbing coach is wearing LSU’s colors and logo on his visor, the Tigers are the talk of Louisiana and tickets at 102,000-seat Tiger Stadium are hard to get.“When you hire a coach, that’s part of what you hire; you hire the energy that comes around it,” said Kiffin, whose Tigers open the 2026 season at home against Clemson on Sept. 5. “That pays off in fan support. It pays off in donations. It pays off in recruiting and players wanting to come.”
LSU faced political pressure to land KiffinThe buzz surrounding the onset of the Kiffin era at LSU has been building ever since the dramatic, politically charged chain of events last fall that saw him jump in late November from College Football Playoff-bound Ole Miss to its SEC rival from neighboring Louisiana.LSU fired coach Brian Kelly in October and had to buy out $54 million remaining on his contract. Then came an athletic department shake-up — driven by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and his appointees on the LSU Board of Supervisors — that forced out athletic director Scott Woodward and replaced him with Verge Ausberry. Two days after Kiffin had coached Ole Miss to a victory over Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl, he abruptly left Oxford, Mississippi, flying on a private jet to Baton Rouge, where he signed a seven-year, $91 million contract with LSU.
