Like him or loathe him, LSU coach Lane Kiffin is poised to be the sports media story of the college football season.
The bad boy of college sports has come a long way from coaching the Florida Atlantic Owls—or from being chewed out as an assistant by Nick Saban at Alabama.
Heading into Week 1, most of the buzz was about the Tigers’ first-year coach allegedly skirting the rules by recruiting players who had spent most of the offseason on NFL rosters . On Thursday, the SEC sued LSU in federal court over the matter, with Kiffin named as a defendant.
After LSU humiliated Clemson 51-10 on Saturday night before 102,000 fans, the question should now be whether Kiffin’s Tigers are the best team in the country. But every positive with Kiffin seems to come with a negative; on Tuesday, the SEC amended its complaint, seeking the legal authority to expel LSU from the league. With the SEC voting on Thursday, you also have to ask: Has Kiffin pushed things too far?
Either way, Kiffin has morphed from a charming comeback story at Ole Miss to a coach that many fans love to hate. The Wall Street Journal generously calls him “polarizing.” ESPN’s Paul Finebaum blasted him as a “51-year old man behaving like a 16-year-old.” Bomani Jones sums up Kiffin’s persona with a single word: “Asshole.”
