BATON ROUGE, La. — Lane Kiffin was introduced as LSU's coach Monday, promising to restore it to «the best program in all of college football,» while detailing what he said was an excruciating decision to leave Ole Miss.
His arrival ended a monthslong saga in which Kiffin was the subject of coaching searches by Florida and LSU while Ole Miss tried to retain him. He leaves Oxford amid a historic season in which the Rebels are 11-1 and No. 7 in the College Football Playoff ranking.
Kiffin said the «last 48 hours, in a lot of ways, sucked,» adding that he understood the passion of furious Ole Miss fans who were at the airport as he departed. He said he informed Ole Miss administrators Saturday night that he was taking the LSU job, and continued a conversation \through Sunday trying to figure out how he could continue to coach the Rebels in what he called the «most historic sporting event in the history of the state of Mississippi, a home playoff game.
»There was no way to possibly do it, in my opinion, any better than we did from a timing standpoint," Kiffin said.
Eventually, Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter decided that Kiffin would not coach the Rebels, a decision Kiffin said he respected. He said Carter told him that though it might make sense to everybody outside the program to keep the staff together for the playoffs, Carter has to live in Oxford after Kiffin is gone.
LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry called Kiffin «a big enough personality to operate in a state of big personalities,» and said LSU had no issues with Kiffin continuing to coach Ole Miss. But, Ausberry said, there's no rule in college football, like in the NFL, that prohibits schools from contacting coaches until the season is over.
«That's not
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